She led her lovely visitor into a little closet-like room, in which were a bureau, two chairs, a table, and a small stand, covered with a number of her business hand-bills and a pack of cards. She asked first: “What month was you born?” On receiving the answer, the Astonisher took a book from the bureau and read as follows: “A person born in this month is of an amiable and frank disposition, benevolent, and an amiable and desirable partner in the marriage relation. Your lucky days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which days you may enter on any undertaking, or attempt any enterprise with a good prospect of success.” Then she took up the cards again, and after the usual shuffling and cutting, the Astonisher fired away as follows. “You face luck, you face prosperity, you face true love and disinterested affection, you face a speedy marriage, you face a letter which will come in three days and will contain pleasant news—you face a ring, you face a present of jewelry done up in a small package; the latter will come within two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months—you face an agreeable surprise, you face the death of a friend, you face the seven of clubs which is the luckiest card in the pack—you face two gentlemen with a view to matrimony, one of whom has brown hair and brown eyes, and the other has lighter hair and blue eyes—they are both thinking of you at the present time, but the nearest one you face is the one with light eyes—your marriage runs within six or nine months.” There was very much more to the same effect, but as Johannes was pining all this time for a look at his future husband, he did not pay the strictest attention to it. Finally, when she had finished talking, she said, “Step this way and see your future husband.” This was the eventful moment. The disguised one went to the table and there beheld a pine box, about the size of an ordinary candle-box, though shallower; it was unpainted, and decidedly unornamental as an article of furniture. In one end of it was an aperture about the size of the eye-hole of a telescope; this was carefully covered with a small black curtain. This mystic contrivance was placed upon a table so low that the husband-seeker was compelled to go on his knees to get his eye down low enough to see through. He accomplished this feat without grumbling, although his knees were scarified by the whalebones which surrounded him. The Astonisher then drew aside the little curtain with a grand flourish, and her customer beheld an indistinct figure of a bloated face with a mustache, with black eyes and black hair; it was a hang-dog, thief-like face, and one that he would not have passed in the street without involuntarily putting his hands on his pockets to assure himself that all was right. But he felt that he had no hope of a future husband if he did not accept this one, and he made up his mind to be reconciled to the match.