necessary expenses for life upon one whom the cost of a single imported bonnet, in the contingency of a General European War, might plunge into inextricable pecuniary embarrassment? Possibly, the General European War might not occur in an ordinary married-lifetime, as France was no longer in a condition to menace England, Russia would be wary about provoking the new Prussian giant, and Austria and Italy were not likely soon to forget their last military misadventures; yet, while all the great American journals had, for the last twenty years, published daily editorials, by young writers from the country, to show that such a War could not possibly be averted longer than about the day after tomorrow, would it be judicious for a young girl to marry as though that War were absolutely impossible? No! Her woman's heart sternly reiterated the pitilessly negative; and, as the Ritualistic organist had plainly evinced an earnest intention to let no foreign military complications prevent her marriage with him, she felt that her only safety from his matrimonial violence must be sought in flight.

With whom, though, could she take refuge? If she went to MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON, all her dearest schoolmates would say, that they had always loved her, despite her great faults, yet could not disguise from themselves that she seemed at last to be fairly running after Miss PENDRAGON'S brother. Besides, Mr. BUMSTEAD, offended by the seeming want of confidence in him evinced by her flight, would, probably, take measures publicly to identify MAGNOLIA'S alpaca garment with the covering of his lost umbrella, and thus direct new suspicion against a sister and brother already bothered almost into hysterics.

During the last few weeks, an attack of dyspepsia had laid the foundation of a mind in the Flowerpot, as it generally does in other young female American boarding-school thinkers, and she was now capable of that subtle line of reasoning which is the great commendation of her sex to a recognized perfect intellectual equality with man. Once decided, by her apprehension of a General European War, against marriage with J. BUMSTEAD, she took a rather irritable view of that too attractive devotional musician, and inferred, from his not being wealthy enough to stand the test of possible transatlantic hostilities, that he must, himself, have killed EDWIN DROOD. His umbrella, it was well known, had been present at that fatal Christmas dinner; and a thoughtless insult offered to it, even by his nephew, might have made a demon of him. Suppose that EDWIN, upon returning to the dining-room that night, after his temporary exercise in the open air with MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON, had found his uncle, flushed with cloves, endeavoring to force a social glass of lemon tea upon the umbrella, under the impression that it was a person, and had unthinkingly accused him thereat of being momentarily unsettled in his faculties? Probably, then, hot words would have passed between them; each telling the other that he would have a nice headache in the morning and find it impossible not to look very sleepy even if he fixed his hair ever so elaborately. Blows might have followed: the uncle, in his anger, hewing the nephew limb from limb with the carving knife from the table, and subsequently carrying away the remains to the Pond and there casting them in. Suppose, in his natural excitement, the uncle had hurriedly used the umbrella, opened and held downward, to carry the remains in; and, after coming home again, and snatching a nap under the table, had forgotten all about it, and thus been ever since inconsolable for his alpaca loss? As the young orphan argued thus exhaustively to herself, the extreme probability of her suppositions made her more and more frenzied to fly instantly beyond the reach of one who, in the event of a General European War, would not be a husband whom her head could approve.

After penning a hasty farewell note to Miss CAROWTHERS, to the effect that urgent military reasons obliged her to see her guardian at once, FLORA lost no time in packing a small leather satchel for travel. Two bottles of hair oil, a jar of glycerine, one of cold cream, two boxes of powder, a package of extra back-hair, a phial of belladonna, a camel's-hair brush for the eyebrows, a rouge-saucer for pinking the nails, four flasks of perfumery, a depilatory in a small flagon, and some tooth paste, were the only articles she could pause to collect for her precipitate escape; and, with them in the satchel on her arm, and a bonnet and shawl hurriedly thrown on, she stole away down-stairs, and thus from the house.

Hastening to the Roach House, from whence started an omnibus for the ferry, she was quickly rattling out of Bumsteadville in a vehicle remarkable for the great number and variety of noises it could make when maddened into motion by a span of equine rivals in an immemorial walking-match.

"Now, BONNER," she said to the driver, taking leave of him at the ferry-boat, "be sure and let Miss CAROWTHERS know that you saw me safely off, and that I was not a bit more tired than if I had walked all the way."

Blushing with pleasure at the implied compliment to his equipage from such lips, the skilled horseman had not the heart to object to the wildly mutilated fragment of currency with which his fare had been paid, and went back to where his steeds were taking turns in holding each other up, as happy a man as ever lost money by the change in woman.

Reaching the city, Miss POTTS was promptly worshiped by a hackman of marked conversational powers, who, whip in hand, assured her that his carriage was widely celebrated under the titles of the "Rocking Chair," the "Old Shoe," and the "Glider," on account of its incredible ease of motion; and that, owing to its exquisite abbreviation of travel to the emotions, those who rode in it had actually been known to dispute that they had ridden even half the distance for which they were charged. Did he know where Mr. DIBBLE, the lawyer, lived, in Nassau Street, near Fulton? If she meant lawyer DIBBLE, near Fulton Street, in Nassau, next door but one to the second house below, and directly opposite the building across the way, there was just one span of buckskin horses in the city that could take a carriage built expressly for ladies to that place, as naturally as though it were a stable. It was a place that he—the hackman—always associated with his own mother, because he was so familiar with it in childhood, and had often thought of driving to it blindfolded for a wager.

Proud to learn that her guardian was so well known in the great city, and delighted that she had met a charioteer so minutely familiar with his house of business, FLORA stepped readily into the providential hack, which thereupon instantly began Rocking-Chair-ing, Old-Shoe-ing, and Gliding. Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous combination in the present case gave the Flowerpot a confused impression that her whole ride was a startling series of incessant sharp turns around obdurate street corners, and kept her plunging about like an early young Protestant tossed in a Romish blanket. Instinctively holding her satchel aloft, to save its fragile contents from fracture, she rocked, shoed and glided all over the interior of the vehicle, without hope of gaining breath enough for even one scream, until, nearly unconscious, and, with her bonnet driven half-way into her chignon, she was helped out by the hackman at her guardian's door.

"I am dying!" she groaned.

"Then please remember me in your will, to the extent of two dollars," returned the hackman with much humor. "You're only a little sea-sick, miss; as often happens to people in humble circumstances when they ride in a kerridge for the first time."

Still panting, Miss POTTS paid and discharged this friendly man, and, weariedly entering the building, followed the signs up-stairs to her guardian's office.

After knocking several times at the right door without reply, she turned the knob, and entered so softly that the venerable lawyer was not aroused from the slumber into which he had fallen in his chair by the window. With a copy of Putnam's Magazine still grasped in his honest right hand, good Mr. DIBBLE slept like a drugged person; nor could the young girl awaken him until, by a happy inspiration, she had snatched away the monthly and cast it through the casement.

"Am I dreaming?" exclaimed the aged man, when thus suddenly rescued from his deadly lethargy at last "Is that you, my dear; or are you your late mother?"

"I am your ridiculously unhappy ward," answered the Flowerpot, tremulously. "Oh, poor, dear, absurd EDDY!"

"And you have come here all alone?"

"Yes; and to escape being married to EDDY'S perfectly hateful uncle, who has the same as ordered me to become his utterly disgusted bride. Oh, why is it, why is it, that I must be thus persecuted by young men without property! Why is it that perfectly horrid madmen on salaries are allowed to claim me as their own!"

"My dear," cried the old lawyer, leading her to a chair, and striving to speak soothingly, "if Mr. BUMSTEAD desires to marry you he must indeed be insane. Such a man ought really to be confined," he continued, pacing thoughtfully up and down the room. "This must have been the idea that was already turning his brain when—bless my soul!—he actually intimated, first, that I, and then, that Mr. SIMPSON, had killed his nephew!"

"He thinks, now, that I, or MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON, may have done it,—the hateful creature!" said FLORA, passionately.

"I see, I see," assented Mr. DIBBLE, nodding. "When he has you in his head, my dear, he himself must clearly be out of it. You shall stay here and take tea with me, and then I will take you to FRENCH'S Hotel for your accommodation during the night."

It was a sight to see him tenderly help her off with her bonnet; and suggestive to hear him say, that if a man could only take off his brains as easily as a woman hers, what a relief it would be to him occasionally. It was curious to see him peep into her bottle-filled satchel, with an old man's freedom; and to hear him audibly wonder thereat, whether, after all, men were any more addicted than women to the social glass when they wanted to put a better face on affairs. And, after the waiter bringing him toast and tea from a neighboring restaurant had brought an additional slice and cup for the guest, it was pleasant to behold him smiling across the office-table at that guest, and encouraging her to eat as much as she would if a member of his sex were not looking.

"It must be absurdly ridiculous to stay here all alone, as you do, sir," observed FLORA.

"But I am not always alone," answered Mr. DIBBLE. "My clerk, Mr. BLADAMS, now taking a vacation in the country, is generally here though, to be sure, I may lose him before long. He's turned literary."

"How perfectly frightful!" said Miss POTTS.

"He has set up for a genius, my child, and is now engaged upon a great American novel. Discontented with the law, he is giving great attention to this; but Free Trade will not, I am afraid, allow any American publisher to bring it out."

"Free Trade?" repeated FLORA.

"Yes, my dear, Free Trade; that is, while American publishers can steal foreign novels for nothing, they are not going to pay anything for native fiction."

Yawning behind her hand, the Flowerpot murmured something about Free Trade being positively absurd, and her guardian went on:

"Nevertheless, Mr. BLADAMS is going on-with his work, which he calls 'The Amateur Detective;' and if it ever does come out you shall have a copy.—But, by the by," added the lawyer, suddenly, "you have not yet fully described to me the interview in which poor Mr. EDWIN'S uncle offered to become your husband."

She gave him a full history of the Ritualistic organist's handsome offer to her of his H. and H.; adding her own final decision in the matter as precipitated by the possibility of a General European war; and Mr. DIBBLE heard the whole with an air of studious attention.

"Although I have certainly no particular reason for befriending Mr. BUMSTEAD," said he, reflectively, "I shall take measures to keep him from you. Now come with me to FRENCH'S Hotel. To-morrow I will call there for you, you know, and then, perhaps, you may be taken to see your friend, Miss PENDRAGON."

Having obtained for his ward a room in the hotel named, and seen her safely to its shelter, the good old lawyer visited the bar-room of the establishment, for the purpose of ascertaining whether any evil-disposed person could get in through that way for the disturbance of his fair charge. After which he departed for his home in Gowanus.

(To be Continued.)

MOTTO FOR ALL GOOD CUBANS.—"The labor we delight in physics (S)pain."

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

unctually as announced, the FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE has re-opened. It has been improved by the addition of several private boxes that remind one of the square pews in old-fashioned churches, (by the way, why do Puseyites object to pews?) and by the erection of a hydrant near the conductor's seat, so that when the audience can endure STOEPEL'S music no longer, they can turn on the water and drown him and his long-winded orchestra. This latter improvement meets with our hearty approval, and we earnestly hope to see it put to the excellent use for which it is designed without further delay. Manager DALY is now offering to his patrons the new comedy of Man and Wife. The old-fashioned play of that name, which is daily acted everywhere about us, is usually more of a tragedy than a comedy, but Mr. DALY'S Man and Wife is comedy, farce, muscular christianity, and paralysis pleasantly mingled together. As thus:

ACT I.—GEOFFREY DELAMAYN and his brother are seen conversing in an arbor. (Don't let the printer imagine that I mean Ann Arbor. It was bad enough in WILKIE COLLINS to banish his dramatis personae to Scotland; but he was nevertheless too humane to send them to Michigan.)

JULIUS DELAMAYN. "GEOFFREY, you really must do something. The unmannerly people who are just coming into the theatre make such a noise that I couldn't be heard if I took the trouble to preach to you for an hour, so I won't attempt to make my meaning any clearer."

GEOFFREY. "I will or I won't, I forget which. However, the audience can't hear. We've got a pretty good house here to-night I wonder if my muscles really show to any extent. Here comes LADY LUNDIE and her friends."

LADY LUNDIE. "I choose everybody to play croquet on my side. The rest may play on BLANCHE'S side. Miss SYLVESTER, you look as if you could not stand alone. Therefore I order you to play."

ANNIE SYLVESTER. "Madame, I will. GEOFFREY, meet me here in ten minutes, or you'll be sorry for it." (Exit everybody. ANNIE and GEOFFREY returning on tip-toe.)

ANNIE. "You must marry me this afternoon. Meet me at the inn on the moor."

GEOFFREY. "I won't cross the moor with you. DESDEMONA foolishly crossed the Moor, and came to grief in consequence. I take warning by her. I hate you, but I suppose I must marry you, or you'll sell all my letters to the Sun."—(They go out to be married.)

ARNOLD enters and makes love to BLANCHE. SIR PATRICK does the comic business with LEWIS'S usual humor. (What a nice man LEWIS must be for girls to quarrel with; he "makes up" so nicely—this is a joke.) LADY LUNDIE enters and announces that ANNIE is no longer her governess, that misguided person having thrown up her situation, for the irrational reason that it was an interesting one, and having fled in the silence of the after-dinner hour. Shrieks of horror from the young ladies, who desist from knocking their croquet-balls into the orchestra and