“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.)

* * * * *

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the punchinello publishing company, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

* * * * *

A good fight.

We presume that all the Boston people “lecture” at times; at any rate they could, if they wanted to.  No one doubts their ability.

But, let the number of these imparters of information be ever so great, we have reason to doubt whether any other of these accomplished parties has grappled with so formidable, so tremendous a subject, as that which is now exciting the powerful mind of Miss Lillian EDGARTON.

She is going to do it, though!  If her life is spared, and her constitution remains free from blight, (both of which felicities we trust will be hers,) that subject has got to come under.