The reception-room was about 10 by 12, and so low that a tall man could not yawn in it without rapping his head against the ceiling. In places the plaster had been displaced and the bare lath showed through, reminding one of skeletons. The floor was dingily carpeted; a double bed occupied one side of the room, a small cooking-stove stood in the middle of the floor and had a disproportionately slim pipe issuing out of the corner, like a straw in a mint-julep; seven chairs of varied patterns, a small round table, on which lay a pack of cards covered with a cloth, and a tumble-down chest of drawers completed the necessary furniture of the apartment. The ornaments are quickly enumerated. A black wooden cross hung by the windows, a few cheap and gaudy Scriptural prints were fastened against the wall, a chemist’s bottle, of large dimensions, and filled with a blue liquid, reposed on the chest of drawers, side by side with a few miniature casts of lambs and dogs; and on a little shelf stood a quarter-size plaster bust of some unknown worthy, of which the head had been knocked off and its place significantly supplied with a goose-egg. In a short time Mrs. Grommer emerged from an unlooked-for apartment and entered the room. She is a negress and a grandmother—her age is 65, and a brood of children, together with a swarm of the aforesaid grandchildren, reside near at hand and keep the old lady’s mansion constantly besieged. As to size—she is large, apparently solid, and would struggle severely with a 200 pound weight before she would acknowledge herself conquered. She was neatly attired, and, in fact, a most grateful air of cleanliness pervaded the entire establishment, and it was a refreshing contrast to most of the dens of the fairer-skinned witches heretofore encountered by the cash delegate. The sable one entered into conversation, and a few minutes were passed in cheerful chat, in the course of which she thus referred to the scapegrace husband of one of her numerous daughters: “They think Anson is dead, but I can’t station him dead. I think he’s at sea somewhere, or in a foreign land, but I can’t station him dead. He might as well be under ground for all the good he is, for he is such a poor, mis’able, drinkin’ feller that he aint no use, but, after all, I can’t run him dead.” At last, the object of the visit was mentioned, and, to the individual’s great surprise, Mrs. Grommer positively and peremptorily refused to give him the benefit of her prophetic powers.