Having just arrived from New York, where she has been luxuriating and selecting her wares for the coming season, (New York is the fountain ejecting its vice over this Union,) Madame looks hale, hearty, and exceedingly cheerful.  Nor has she spared any expense to make herself up with becoming youthfulness-as the common people have it.  She has got her a lace cap of the latest fashion, with great broad striped blue and red strings; and her dress is of orange-colored brocade, trimmed with tulle, and looped with white blossoms.  Down the stomacher it is set with jewels.  Her figure seems more embonpoint than when we last saw her; and as she leans on the arm of old Judge Sleepyhorn, forms a striking contrast to the slender figure of that singular specimen of judicial infirmity.  Two great doors are opened, and Madame leads the way into what she calls her upper and private parlor, a hall of some fifty feet by thirty, in the centre of which a sumptuously-decorated table is set out.  Indeed there is a chasteness and richness about the furniture and works of art that decorate this apartment, singularly at variance with the bright-colored furniture of the room we have described in a former chapter.  “Ladies and gentlemen!” ejaculates the old hostess, “imagine this a palace, in which you are all welcome.  As the legal gentry say (she casts a glance at the old Judge), when you have satisfactorily imagined that, imagine me a princess, and address me—­”

“High ho!” interrupts Mr. Soloman.

“I confess,” continues the old woman, her little, light-brown curls dangling across her brow, and her face crimsoning, “I would like to be a princess.”

“You can,” rejoins the former speaker, his fingers wandering to his chin.

“Well!  I have my beadle-beadles, I take, are inseparable from royal blood-and my servants in liveries.  After all (she tosses her head) what can there be in beadles and liveries?  Why! the commonest and vulgarest people of New York have taken to liveries.  If you chance to take an elegant drive up the ‘Fifth Avenue,’ and meet a dashing equipage-say with horses terribly caparisoned, a purloined crest on the carriage-door, a sallow-faced footman covered up in a green coat, all over big brass buttons, stuck up behind, and a whiskey-faced coachman half-asleep in a great hammercloth, be sure it belongs to some snob who has not a sentence of good English in his head.  Yes! perhaps a soap-chandler, an oil-dealer, or a candy-maker.  Brainless people always creep into plush-always!  People of taste and learning, like me, only are entitled to liveries and crests.”  This Madame says, inviting her guests to take seats at her banquet-table, at the head of which she stands, the Judge on her right, Mr. Soloman on her left.  Her china is of the most elaborate description, embossed and gilt; her plate is of pure silver, and massive; she has vases and candelabras of the same metal; and her cutlery is of the most costly description.  No house in the