"I forgot about my uncle, JACK BUMSTEAD," he said, uneasily. "It will be a dreadful blow for JACK: he's counted so much upon my having a wife for him to flirt with.--There he is, now!"
"Where?"
"Amongst those trees down there--Look!"
In a small grove, skirting the road some distance behind them, Mr. BUMSTEAD could indeed be seen, dodging wildly from one tree to another in an extraordinary manner, and occasionally leaping high in the air and slashing excitedly around him with his alpaca umbrella. A hoop from a barrel, possibly cast out upon the road by somebody, had, apparently, become entangled around the legs and in the coat-tails of the Ritualistic organist; and he, in his extreme nervous sensibility, precipitately mistaking it for one of his old enemies, the snakes, had evidently fled headlong with it as far as the grove, and was there engaging it in frantic single-combat.
"Oh, take me home, at once, please!" begged FLORA, alarmed at the remarkable sight.
"Poor dear old fellow!" exclaimed her companion, obediently hurrying onward with her, "I shall never have the heart to tell him of our separation, and must leave it to your guardian. He'll think he's been the cause of it, by stealing your heart from me.--Here he comes!"
They had barely time to conceal themselves in the Macassar porch, when, with umbrella in full play, and the barrel-hoop half-way up to his waist, Mr. BUMSTEAD came bounding along the turnpike with frenzied agility. "Shoo! 'S'cat, you viper! Get out!" cried he; and stopped, with an unearthly culminating scream of terror, immediately in front of the Alms-House, where the hoop suddenly fell at his feet. A moment he beat his fallen enemy with the umbrella, as though madly striving to actually hammer it into the earth; then, as suddenly, suspended his attack, stooped low to eye his victim more closely, and, with a fierce pounce, had it in his grasp. "Was it only thisss?" he hissed, holding it at arm's length: "Sold again: signed, J. BUMSTEAD." And, hanging it over his umbrella, he stalked moodily onward.
"What a struggle his whole lonely life is!" said EDWIN DROOD, coming out from the porch.
FLORA'S parting look, as she entered the door, was as though she had said, "Oh! don't you understand?" But the young man went away unconscious of its meaning.
(To be Continued.)