AS soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.

"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."

I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared a gutter that ran between Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas—gold-colored, and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples, books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of oysters on each side the door.

Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp knives in their hands.

"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones, but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out, "Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast—one raw on half-shell!"

Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room, sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down, too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of the aristocratic.

"Now, what shall we have?" says he.

"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.

Cousin D. said something in a low voice to the young man, who went to the door, and called out:

"One roast! one stew—Saddlerock!"

I started up and caught that young man by the arm, a-feeling as if I had got hold of a cannibal. Saddlerocks, indeed!

"Young man," says I, "you have mistaken your party; we didn't ask for stewed grindstones—only oysters."

He looked at me, at first, wild as a night-hawk, and seemed as if he wanted to run away.

"Don't be scared," says I; "no harm is intended; it is an oyster stew that we want—nothing more. I'm not fond of hard meat. If you don't know how to cook them—which is natural, being a man—I can tell you. Now be particular—put in half milk, a considerable chunk of butter, not too much pepper, and just let them come to a boil—no more. I do hate oysters stewed to death. You understand?" says I, counting over the ingredients on my fingers—"now go and do your duty."

"Yes'm," says he, and goes right to the door, and sings out: "One stew!—one roast!" so loud that it made me jump. Then he came back into the room, while I retired, with dignity, to my seat by the table.

It seemed to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done, for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid a profane word came with it, though I pretended not to hear.

By and by, in came the waiter-man, with two plates of cabbage cut fine, and chucked a vinegar cruet down before me; then he clapped salt and pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters, steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a luscious meal on the steam.

Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get 'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of them is enough to keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week. Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this Leap Year.

Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer—things that I wouldn't touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink—so I pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back a-kind of laughing, and says he:

"Just taste it."

"Beer?" says I. "Never."

Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.

"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is beer till you've tasted it?"

"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"

I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin Dempster, and just nodded.

Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters, you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.

Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.

"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion, the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now. I've got over that. Where is their dens, or cages, and how often do they feed?

Cousin Dempster set down his pewter mug, and just stared at me with all his eyes.

"What is it? What do you mean?" says he.

"What! the lion, to be sure! Didn't you say that I would see one of the city lions when I came to Fulton Market?"

That man must have been possessed. He leaned back in his chair, he stooped forward, his face turned red, and, oh! my how he did laugh!

"What possesses you, Cousin D.," says I, riling up.

"Oh, nothing," says he, wiping the tears from his eyes, and trying to stop laughing, though he couldn't; "only—only this isn't a menagerie, but a market. Did you really think there were wild beasts on exhibition? It was the market we meant."

Then I remembered that E. E. had called me a lion once. Now it was the market, and there wasn't a sign of the wild beast in either case. There he sat laughing till he cried, because I couldn't understand that ladies and markets were not wild animals. Says I to myself, "I'll make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth,"—so I turned to him as cool as a cucumber:

"What on earth are you te-he-ing about? I only want to walk around the market and see what's going on. Isn't that what we came for?"

Cousin D. stopped laughing, and began to look sheepish enough.

"Is that it?" says he.

"What else?" says I. "You didn't think I expected this great, big, low-roofed market to have paws and growl, did you," says I. "I would growl if the city were to set me down in the mud of this pestiferous place. So you thought I really meant it. Well, the easy way in which some men are taken in is astonishing. They never can understand metaphor," says I. "But the bivalves and Rockaways. What of them?" says I.

"Swallowed them," says he. Sisters, the dizziness in my stomach was awful.