She is a woman of the most abject and cringing manner imaginable; a female counterpart of Uriah Heep, with an unknown multiplication of that vermicular gentleman’s writhings; she wore no hoops, she would have squirmed herself out of them in an instant; her dress was fastened securely on with numerous visible hooks and eyes, and pins, and strings, in spite of which precautions her visitor expected to see her worm out of it before she got up stairs, and would scarcely have been astonished to see her jerk her skeleton out of her skin, and complete her errand in her bones. With a propitiating bow, whose intense servility would have become Mr. Sampson Brass in the day of his discomfiture, she asked her customer into the house, cringingly preceded him up stairs, deferentially placed a chair, and abjectly departed into an inner room, pausing at the door to execute an obsequious wriggle, and to once more humble herself in the dust (of which there was plenty) before her astonished visitor. The reception-room to which she led him, is an apartment of moderate size, from the front windows of which the beholder may regale his eyes with a comprehensive view of Centre Market and its charming surroundings; Mott and Mulberry Streets lie just beyond, and the Tombs are visible in the dim distance. The room was furnished with a superfluity of gaudy furniture; and sofas, tables, chairs and pictures, crowded and elbowed each other, showing plainly that the upholstery of a couple, at least, of parlors had been there compressed into a bedroom. From the inner room came a great sound, made up of so many household ingredients as to defy accurate analysis—but the crying of babies, the frizzling of cooking meat, the scraping of saucepans, and a sound of somebody scolding everybody else, predominated. The voyager was unprepared for any _Mister_ Hayes, having taken it for granted that the _Mrs._ of the superior and wonderful clairvoyant did not imply a husband, but was merely assumed because it looks more dignified in the advertisement. But there _was_ a _Mr._ Hayes, and presently the door opened and that worthy appeared; he was surrounded by an atmosphere of fried onions, and the fragrant and greasy perspiration in his face seemed to have been distilled from that favorite vegetable.