It is a high old house this of Madame Flamingo.  We speak approvingly of all we see, her pride is stimulated, she quickens her conversation.  “I think you said two bottles, gentlemen?  Our sparkling Moselle is pronounced a gem by connoisseurs.”  And again flaunting her embroidered apron, she trips hurriedly out of the room.  While she is gone we turn to view its human furniture.  Yonder, in a cozy alcove, stands a marble-topped pier-table, at which are seated two gentlemen of great respectability in the community, playing whist with fair but frail partners.  Near them, on a soft lounge, is seated a man of portly person and venerable appearance (his hair is snowy white, and he has a frank, open countenance), holding converse with, and evidently enamoured of a modest and beautiful girl, of some sixteen summers, who has just taken her seat at the opposite end.  Madame Flamingo addresses this man as “Judge.”  His daylight duty is known to be that of presiding over a criminal court.  The girl with whom he nervously holds conversation, and whose bright, Italian eyes, undulating black hair, Grecian face and fair features, swelling bust and beautifully-chiseled shoulders, round polished arms and tapering hands, erect figure, so exactly dressed in black brocade, and so reserve in her demeanor, is the Anna Bonard of this history.  “Judge!” she says in reply to a question he has advanced, and turning disdainfully upon him her great black eyes, walks gracefully out of the room.

Sitting on a sofa opposite is a slender youth, somewhat flashily dressed.  His complexion is sandy, there is something restless in his manner; and in his features, which are sharp and watchful, is that which indicates a mind weak and vacillating.  He sits alone, seemingly thoughtful, and regarding with a jealous eye the insidious manner in which the venerable judge addresses the beautiful Anna, in whom you must know, reader, he has a deep and passionate interest.  As Anna passes out of the room he, like one in despair, rests his head in his pale, bony, and freckled hand, and mutters to himself:  “I will have revenge.  His gray hairs shall not save him—­my name is George Mullholland!”

Here and there, on sofas arranged between the great windows, sit faded denizens, reclining languidly in dresses of various bright colors, set off with gaudy trinkets, and exhibiting that passion for cheap jewelry so much in vogue with the vulgar of our self-plumed aristocracy—­such as live at fashionable hotels, and, like Mrs. Snivel, who has a palace on the Fifth Avenue, make a show-case for cheap diamonds of themselves at breakfast table.  Beside these denizens are men of every shade and grade of society.  With one sits the distinguished lawyer; with a second converses the grave-demeanored merchant, who seeks, away from the cares of his domestic hearth, to satisfy his curiosity here; with a third, the celebrated physician sips his wine; with a fourth, the fatherly planter exchanges his saliant jokes; with a fifth, Doctor Handy