“The fates have so ordained it,” smiles naively the old woman.

“Of course the fates could not ordain otherwise—­”

“As to that, Mr. Soloman, I sometimes think the gods are with me, and then again I think they are against me.  The witches-they have done my fortune a dozen times or more-always predict evil (I consult them whenever a sad fit comes over me), but witches are not to be depended upon!  I am sure I think what a fool I am for consulting them at all.”  She espies, for her trade of sin hath made keen her eye, the venerable figure of Judge Sleepyhorn advancing up the hall, masked.  “Couldn’t get along without you,” she lisps, tripping towards him, and greeting him with the familiarity of an intimate friend.  “I’m rather aristocratic, you’ll say!—­and I confess I am, though a democrat in principle!” And Madame Flamingo confirms what she says with two very dignified nods.  As the Judge passes silently in she pats him encouragingly on the back, saying,—­“There ain’t no one in this house what’ll hurt a hair on your head.”  The Judge heeds not what she says.

“My honor for it, Madame, but I think your guests highly favored, altogether!  Fine weather, and the prospect of a bal-masque of Pompeian splendor.  The old Judge, eh?”

“The gods smile-the gods smile, Mr. Soloman!” interrupts the hostess, bowing and swaying her head in rapid succession.

“The gods have their eye on him to-night-he’s a marked man!  A jolly old cove of a Judge, he is!  Cares no more about rules and precedents, on the bench, than he does for the rights and precedents some persons profess to have in this house.  A high old blade to administer justice, eh?”

“But, you see, Mr. Soloman,” the hostess interrupts, a gracious bow keeping time with the motion of her hand, “he is such an aristocratic prop in the character of my house.”

“I rather like that, I confess, Madame.  You have grown rich off the aristocracy.  Now, don’t get into a state of excitement!” says Mr. Soloman, fingering his long Saxon beard, and eyeing her mischievously.  She sees a bevy of richly-dressed persons advancing up the hall in high glee.  Indeed her house is rapidly filling to the fourth story.  And yet they come! she says.  “The gods are in for a time.  I love to make the gods happy.”

Mr. Soloman has lain his hand upon her arm retentively.

“It is not that the aristocracy and such good persons as the Judge spend so much here.  But they give eclat to the house, and eclat is money.  That’s it, sir!  Gold is the deity of our pantheon!  Bless you (the hostess evinces the enthusiasm of a politician), what better evidence of the reputation of my house than is before you, do you want?  I’ve shut up the great Italian opera, with its three squalling prima donnas, which in turn has shut up the poor, silly Empresario, as they call him; and the St. Cecilia I have just used up.  I’m a team in my way, you see;—­run all these fashionable oppositions right into bankruptcy.”  Never were words spoken with more truth.  Want of patronage found all places of rational amusement closed.  Societies for intellectual improvement, one after another, died of poverty.  Fashionable lectures had attendance only when fashionable lecturers came from the North; and the Northman was sure to regard our taste through the standard of what he saw before him.