dreaming that she has sold old Mumma Molly, Cicero’s wife, and with the proceeds finds herself in New York, hob-nobbing it with Sister Slocum, and making one extensive donation to the Tract Society, and another to the fund for getting Brother Singleton Spyke off to Antioch.  Her arrival in Gotham, she dreams, is a great event.  The Tract Society (she is its guest) is smothering her with its attentions.  Indeed, a whole column and a half of the very conservative and highly respectable old Observer is taken up with an elaborate and well-written history of her many virtues.

The venerable old lady dreams herself into dusky evening, and wakes to find old Rebecca summoning her to tea.  She is exceedingly sorry the old slave disturbed her.  However, having great faith in dreams, and the one she has just enjoyed bringing the way to aid Sister Slocum in carrying out her projects of love so clear to her mind, she is resolved to lose no time in carrying out its principles.  Selling old Molly won’t be much; old Molly is not worth much to her; and the price of old Molly (she’ll bring something!) will do so much to enlighten the heathen, and aid the Tract Society in giving out its excellent works.  “And I have for years longed to see Sister Slocum, face to face, before I die,” she says.  And with an affixed determination to carry out this pious resolve, Mrs. Swiggs sips her tea, and retires to her dingy little chamber for the night.

A bright and cheerful sun ushers in the following morning.  The soft rays steal in at the snuffy door, at the dilapidated windows, through the faded curtains, and into the “best parlor,” where, at an early hour, sits the antique old lady, rummaging over some musty old papers piled on the centre-table.  The pale light plays over and gives to her features a spectre-like hue; while the grotesque pieces of furniture by which she is surrounded lend their aid in making complete the picture of a wizard’s abode.  The paper she wants is nowhere to be found.  “I must exercise a little judgment in this affair,” she mutters, folding a bit of paper, and seizing her pen.  Having written—­“To the master of the workhouse: 

“I am sorry I have to trouble you so often with old Cicero.  He will not pay wages all I can do.  Give him at least thirty-well laid on.  I go to New York in a few days, and what is due you from me for punishments will be paid any time you send your bill.  “Sarah Pringle Hughes Swiggs.”

“Well! he deserves what he gets,” she shakes her head and ejaculates.  Having summoned Rebecca, Master Cicero, a hard-featured old negro, is ordered up, and comes tottering into the room, half-bent with age, his hair silvered, and his face covered with a mossy-white beard-the picture of a patriarch carved in ebony.  “Good mornin’, Missus,” he speaks in a feeble and husky voice, standing hesitatingly before his august owner.  “You are—­well, I might as well say