ing therein an equally
imaginary object from another pocket.--"Try the H. and H. of J.
BUMSTEAD."

His manner is as though he were commending some patent article of
unquestionable utility.

"But I can't bear the sight of you!" she cries, pushing away the brown
linen arm coming after her again.

Taking away her fan, he pats her on the head with it, and seems
momentarily surprised at the hollow sound.

"Future Mrs. BUMSTEAD," he cheerfully replies, at last, "my observation
and knowledge of the women of America teach me that there never was a
wife going to Indiana for a divorce, who had not at first sworn to love,
as well as honor and obey, her husband. Such is woman that if she had
felt and said at the altar that she couldn't bear the sight of him, it
wouldn't have been in the power of masculine brutality and dissipated
habits to drive her from his side through all their lives. There can be
no better sign of our future happiness, than for you to say, beforehand,
that you utterly detest the man of your choice."

There is something terrible to the young girl in the original turn of
thought of this fascinating man. Say what she may, he at once turns it
into virtual devotion to himself. He appears to have a perfectly
dreadful power to hang everybody; he considers her strongest avowal of
present personal dislike the most promising indication she can give of
eternal future infatuation with him, and his powerful mode of reasoning
is more profound and composing than an article in a New York newspaper
on a War in Europe. Rendered dizzy by his metaphysical conversation, she
arises from the rustic seat, and is flying giddily into the house, when
he leaps athletically after her, and catches her in the doorway.

"I merely wish to request," he says, quietly, "that you place sufficient
restraint upon your naturally happy feelings to keep our engagement a
secret from the public at present, as I can't bear to have boys calling
out after me, 'There's the feller that's goin' to get married! There's
the feller that's goin' to get married!' When a man is about to make a
fool of himself, it is not for children to remind him of it."

The door being opened before she can answer, FLORA receives a parting
bow of Grandisonian elegance from Mr. BUMSTEAD, and hastens up stairs to
her room in a distraction of mind not uncommon to those having
conversational relations with the Ritualistic organist.

_(To be Continued.)_

* *