trouble; and when I said, 'Madam, I will do myself the honor to become an inmate of your house,' she seemed so overjoyed that it was with difficulty she could withhold her tears. On inquiring her name and what business her husband followed, she replied that her name was Mrs. Pickle, (she having dropped Primrose for sufficient cause,) and that of her husband, Mr. Stephen Pickle, of the young American Banking House of Pickle, Prig, & Flutter, doing business near Wall Street. We returned to the parlor, and when the valise bearing my name, which I took good care to keep in sight, was sent up stairs, and I had told her how the accident to her portrait was caused, she blushed and was so ready to unbosom her griefs, that she immediately proceeded to give me an account of herself, and how it was that she was Mrs. Pickle and Mr. Primrose still living. "'Pardon me, sir,' said she, 'but as I know you think it strange that I have adopted this humble calling, I will tell you in brief how it happened. A change came over my father's fortunes, and from being a rich and influential merchant, he was, by what is called endorsing for others, reduced to a state of poverty, and so harassed by his creditors, who in their grasping for what he had would give him no chance to retrieve his fortunes, that he put an end to a miserable existence by hanging himself. My father was a man of simple tastes, and set a higher value upon his good name than upon the worldly show which was coming into fashion at that time. With my mother, it was quite different, for although she was much given to the church, and subscribed largely for the support of an expensive clergyman, she had a love of worldly show and ostentation, that not only reduced my father's means, but grievously distressed him. The sudden turn in our circumstances produced but little change in my mother, who set great value upon the good looks she imagined me possessing; and having some money of her own, we took board with Mrs. Marmaduke, who kept a boarding house for people of distinction, in Fifth Avenue, and was famous for the style and luxury of her establishment, which had been the scene of several rich matrimonial alliances.