“You have some important news?” hastily inquires Mrs. Swiggs, laying a bit of muslin carefully between the pages of her Milton, and returning it to the table, saying she has just been grievously provoked by one of that black-coated flock who go about the city in search of lambs.  They always remind her of light-houses pointing the road to the dominions of the gentleman in black.

“Something very important!” parenthesises Soloman—­“very.”  And he shakes his head, touches her significantly on the arm with his orange-colored glove,—­he smiles insidiously.

“Pray be seated, Mr. Snivel.  Rebecca!—­bring Mr. Snivel the rocking-chair.”

“You see, my good Madam, there’s such a rumor about town this morning! (Soloman again taps her on the arm with his glove.) The cat has got out of the bag-it’s all up with the St. Cecilia!—­”

“Do, Rebecca, make haste with the rocking-chair!” eagerly interrupts the old woman, addressing herself to the negress, who fusses her way into the room with a great old-fashioned rocking-chair.  “I am so sensitive of the character of that society,” she continues with a sigh, and wipes and rubs her spectacles, gets up and views herself in the glass, frills over her cap border, and becomes very generally anxious.  Mrs. Swiggs is herself again.  She nervously adjusts the venerable red shawl about her shoulders, draws the newly-introduced arm-chair near her own, ("I’m not so old, but am getting a little deaf,” she says), and begs her visitor will be seated.

Mr. Soloman, having paced twice or thrice up and down the little room, contemplating himself in the glass at each turn, now touching his neatly-trimmed Saxon mustache and whiskers, then frisking his fingers through his candy-colored hair, brings his dignity into the chair.

“I said it was all up with the St. Cecilia—­”

“Yes!” interrupts Mrs. Swiggs, her eyes glistening like balls of fire, her lower jaw falling with the weight of anxiety, and fretting rapidly her bony hands.

Soloman suddenly pauses, says that was a glorious bottle of old Madeira with which he enjoyed her hospitality on his last visit.  The flavor of it is yet fresh in his mouth.

“Thank you-thank you!  Mr. Soloman.  I’ve a few more left.  But pray lose no time in disclosing to me what hath befallen the St. Cecilia.”

“Well then-but what I say must be in confidence. (The old woman says it never shall get beyond her lips-never!) An Englishman of goodly looks, fashion, and money-and, what is more in favor with our first families, a Sir attached to his name, being of handsome person and accomplished manners, and travelling and living after the manner of a nobleman, (some of our first families are simple enough to identify a Baronet with nobility!) was foully set upon by the fairest and most marriageable belles of the St. Cecilia.  If he had possessed a dozen hearts, he could have had good markets for them all.  There was such a getting up of attentions!  Our fashionable mothers did their very best in arraying the many accomplishments of their consignable daughters, setting forth in the most foreign but not over-refined phraseology, their extensive travels abroad—­”