and hugged and kissed her with an unctuousness justified by his great age and extreme goodness. It was his fine old way of bestowing an inestimable blessing upon all the plump younger women of his acquaintance, and the benediction was conferred on the slightest pretexts, and impartially, up to a certain age.

"Am I to construe what I have seen and heard, my dear, as equivalent to the conclusion of my guardianship?" he asked, smilingly.

"Oh, please don't be so ridiculous—oh, I never was so exquisitely nervous," pleaded the helpless, fluttered young creature.

"I reckon I've betrayed your confidence, sir," said MONTGOMERY, desperately; "but you must have known, from hearsay at least, how I have felt toward this young lady ever since our first meeting, and should not have exposed me to a temptation stronger than I could bear. I have, indeed, done myself the honor to offer her the hand and heart if one who, although but a poor gentleman, will be richer than kings if she deigns to make him so."

"Why, how absurd!" ejaculated the orphan, quickly. "It's perfectly ridiculous to call me well off: and how could I make you richer than kings and things, you know?"

The old and the young men exchanged looks of unspeakable admiration at such touching artlessness.

"Sweet innocence!" exclaimed her guardian, playfully pinching her cheek and privately surprised at its floury feeling. "What would you say if I told you that, since our shrewd EDDY retired from the contest, I have been wishing to see you and our Southern friend here brought to just such terms as you appear to have reached? What would you say if I added that, such consummation seeming to be the best you or your friends could do for yourself, I have determined to deal with you as a daughter, in the matter of seeing to it that you begin your married life with a daughter's portion from my own estate?"

Both the young people had his hands in theirs, on either side of him, in an instant.

"There! there!" continued the excellent old gentleman, "don't try to express yourselves. FLORA, place one of your hands in the breast of my coat, and draw out the parcel you find there. * * * That's it. The article it contains once belonged to your mother, my dear, and has been returned to me by the hands to which I once committed it in the hope that they would present it to you. I loved your mother well, my child, but had not enough property at the time to contend with your father. Open the parcel in private, and be warned by its moral: Better is wilful waist than woeful want of it."

It was the stay-lace by which Mrs. POTTS, from too great persistence in drawing herself up proudly, had perished in her prime.

"Now come into the open air with me, and let us walk to Central Park," continued Mr. DIBBLE, shaking off his momentary fit of gloom, "I have strange things to tell you both. I have to teach you, in justice to a much-injured man, that we have, in our hearts, cruelly wronged that excellent and devout Mr. BUMSTEAD, by suspecting him of a crime whereof he is now proved innocent at least I suspected him. To-morrow night we must all be in Bumsteadville. I will tell you why as we walk."

CHAPTER XXVII.

SOLUTION.

In the darkness of a night made opaque by approaching showers, a man stands under the low-drooping branches of the edge of a wood skirting the cross-road leading down to Gospeler's Gulch.

"Not enough saved from the wreck even to buy the merciful rope that should end all my humor and impecuniosity!" he mutters, over his folded arms and heaving chest. "I have come to this out-of-the-way suburb to end my miserable days, and not so much as one clothes-line have I seen yet. There is the pond, however; I can jump into that, I suppose: but how much more decent were it to make one's quietus under the merry greenwood tree with a cord—"

He stops suddenly, holding his breath; and, almost simultaneously with a sharp, rushing noise in the leaves overhead, something drops upon his shoulder. He grasps it, cautiously feels of it, and, to his unspeakable amazement, discovers that it is a rope apparently fastened to the branches above!

"Wonderful!" he ejaculates, in an awe-stricken whisper. "Providence helps a wretch to die, if not to live. At any other time I should think this very strange, but just now I've got but one thing to do. Here's my rope, here's my neck, and here goes!"

Heedless of everything but his dread intention, he rapidly ties the rope about his throat, and is in the act of throwing forward his whole weight upon it, when there is a sharp jerk of the rope, he is drawn up about three feet in the air, and, before he can collect his thoughts, is as abruptly let down upon his feet again. Simultaneously, a sound almost like suppressed swearing comes very clearly to his ear, and he is conscious of something dimly white in the profound darkness, not far away.

"Sold again: signed, J. BUMSTEAD," exclaims a deep voice. "I thought the rope was caught in a crotch; but 'twasn't. Try't once more."

The astounded hearer feels the rope tugging at his own neck again, and, with a half comprehension of the situation, calls "Stop!" in a suffocating voice.

"Who's there?" comes from the darkness.

"JEREMY BENTHAM, late proprietor of first-class American Comic Paper.—Died of Comic Serial.—Want to hang myself," is the jerky reply from the other side.

"Got your own rope, sir?"

"No. One fell down on my shoulders just as I was wishing for it; but it seems to be too elastic."

"That's the other end 'f my rope, air," rejoins the second voice, as in wrath. "I threw't over the branches and thought it had caught, instead of that it let me down, sir."

"And drew me up," says Mr. BENTHAM.

Before another word can be spoken by either, the light of a dark-lantern is flashed upon them. There is Mr. BUMSTEAD, not three yards from Mr. BENTHAM; each with an end of the same rope about his neck, and the head of the former turbaned with a damp towel.

"Are ye men?" exclaims the deep voice of Mr. MELANCTHON SCHENCK from behind the lantern, "and would ye madly incur death before having taken out life-policies in the Boreal?"

"And would my uncle celebrate my return in this style?" cried still another voice from the darkness.

"Who's that spoke just then?" cries the Ritualistic organist.

The answer comes like the note of a trumpet:—

"EDWIN DROOD!"

At the same instant a great glare of light breaks upon the scene from a bonfire of tar-barrels, ignited at the higher end of the cross-road by young SMALLEY; and, to the mingled bewilderment and exasperation of Mr. BUMSTEAD, the radiance reveals, as in noonday, Mr. SCHENCK and his long-lost nephew standing before him; and, coming towards them in festive procession from Gospeler's Gulch. MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON with FLORA on his arm, the Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON escorting MAGNOLIA, Mr. DIBBLE guarding Mrs. SIMPSON, Mr. CLEW'S arm in arm with JOHN McLAUGHLIN. Father DEAN and Judge SWEENEY, Miss CAROWTHERS, and the SMYTHES.

"Trying to hang yourselves!" exclaims Mr. DIBBLE, as the throng gathers curiously around the two gentlemen of the rope.

"And my old friend BENTHAM, too!" cries the Gospeler.

"How perfectly ridiculous!" warbles FLORA.

Staring majestically from one face to the other, and from thence towards the illuminating bonfire, Mr. BUMSTEAD, quite unconscious of the picturesque effect of the towel on his head, deliberately draws an antique black bottle from his pocket, moistens his lips therewith, passes it to the Comic Paper man, and eats a clove.

"What is the meaning of this general intoxication?" he then asks quite severely. "Why does this mass-meeting, greatly under the influence of inferior liquor as it plainly is, intrude thus upon the last hours of a Ritualistic gentleman and a humorous publisher?"

"Because, Uncle JACK," returns EDWIN DROOD, holding his hands curiously behind him as he speaks, "this is a night of general rejoicing Bumsteadville, in honor of my reappearance; and, directed by your landlord, Mr. SMYTHE, we have come out to make you join in our cheer. We are all heartily sorry for the great anguish you have endured in consequence of my unexplained absence. Let me tell you ow it was, as I have already told all our friends here. You know where you placed me while you were in your clove-trance, and I was o unbecomingly asleep, on Christmas night. Well, I was discovered there, in less than three hours thereafter, by JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, who carried me to his own house, and there managed to awaken me. Recovering my senses, I was disgusted with myself, ashamed of what had happened, and anxious to leave Bumsteadville. I swore 'Old Mortarity' to secrecy—"

"—Which I have observed," explains MCLAUGHLIN, nodding.

"—And started immediately for Egypt, in Illinois," continues Mr. DROOD. "There I went into railroading; am engaged to a nice little girl there; and came back two days ago to explain myself all around, returning here, I saw JOHN MCLAUGHLIN first, who told me that a certain Mr. CLEWS was here to unravel the Mystery about me, and persuaded me to let Mr. CLEWS work you into another visit to the cellar the Pauper Burial Ground, and there appear to you as my own ghost, before finally revealing myself as I now do."

The glassy eyes of the Ritualistic organist are fixed upon him in a most uncomfortable manner, but no comment comes.

"And I, Mr. BUMSTEAD," says the old lawyer, "must apologize to you for having indulged a wrong suspicion. Possibly you were rather rash in charging everybody else with assassination and larceny, and offering to marry my ward upon the strength of her dislike to you; but we'll say no more of those things now. Miss POTTS has consented to become Mrs. PENDRAGON; Miss PENDRAGON is the betrothed of Rev. Mr. SIMPSON,—"

"—Miss CAROWTHERS honors me with a matrimonial preference," interpolates Judge SWEENEY, gallantly bowing to that spinster.—

"—Breachy Mr. BLODGETT!" sighs the lady, to herself.—

"—And three weddings will help us to forget everything but that which is bright and pleasant," concludes the lawyer.

Next steps to the front Mr. TRACEY CLEWS, with his surprising head of hair, and archly remarks:

"I believe you take me for a literary man, Mr. BUMSTEAD."

"What is that to me, sir? I've no money to lend," returns the organist, with marked uneasiness.

"To tell you the truth," proceeds the author of "The Amateur Detective," —"to tell you the whole truth, I have been playing the detective with you by order of Mr. DIBBLE, and hope you will excuse my practice upon you."

"He is my clerk," explains Mr. DIBBLE.

Whereupon Mr. TRACEY CLEWS dexterously whips off his brush of red hair, and stands revealed as Mr. BLADAMS.

Merely waiting to granulate one more clove, Mr. BUMSTEAD settles the rope about his neck anew, squints around under the wet towel in a curiously ghastly manner, and thus addresses the meeting:—

"Ladies and gen'l'men—I've listened to y'r impudence with patience, and on any other 'casion would be happy to see y'all safe home. At present, however, Mr. BENTHAM and I desire to be left alone, if 'ts all th' same t' you. You can come for the bodies in th' morning."

"BENTHAM! BENTHAM!" calls the Gospeler, "I can't see you acting in that way, old friend. Come home with me to-night, and we'll talk of starting a Religious Weekly together. That's your only successful American Comic Paper."

"By Jove! so it is!" bawls JEREMY BENTHAM, like one possessed. "I never thought of that before! I'm with you, my boy." And, hastily slipping the rope from his neck, he hurries to his friend's side.

"And you, Uncle JACK—look at this!" exclaims Mr. E. DROOD, bringing from behind his back and presenting to the melancholy organist a thing that looks, at first glance, like an incredibly slim little black girl, headless, with no waist at all, and balanced on one leg.

Mr. BUMSTEAD reaches for it mechanically; a look of intelligence comes into his glassy eyes; then they fairly flame.

"ALLIE!" he cries, dancing ecstatically.

It is the Umbrella—old familiar bone-handle, brass ferrule—in a bran-new dress of alpaca!

All gaze at him with unspeakable emotion, as, with the rope cast from him, he pats his dear old friend, opens her half way, shuts her again, and the while smiles with ineffable tenderness.

Suddenly a shriek—the voice of FLORA—breaks the silence:—

"It rains!—oh, my complexion!"

"Rains?" thunders the regenerated BUMSTEAD, in a tone of inconceivable triumph. "So it does. Now then, ALLIE, do your duty;" and, with a softly wooing, hospitable air, he opens the umbrella and holds it high over his head.

By a common instinct they all swarm in upon him, craning their heads far over each other's shoulders to secure a share of the Providential shelter. The glare of the great bonfire falls upon the scene; the rain pours down in torrents: they crowd in upon him on all sides, until what was once a stately Ritualistic man resembles some tremendous monster with seventeen wriggling bodies, thirty-four legs, and an alpaca canopy above all.

THE END.

THE RACE OF THE DAUNTLESS AND CAMBRIA.

Punchinello's Sporting Special went down to Sandy Hook last week to supervise the race between the Dauntless and the Cambria. The affair was consequently a great success.

Attired in white corduroy breeches, a blue velvet waistcoat, and a light boating-jacket of yellow flannel, your reporter left the Battery at 6 hrs. 22 m, and 5 secs, on Friday morning, and steamed slowly down the bay in the editorial row-boat Punchinelletto, which was manned by an individual of remarkable oar-acular powers. So highly was he gifted indeed in this respect, that your special was enabled to predict the result of the aquatic gambols with perfect accuracy, as it afterward appeared. Having got the yachts in position, he gave Messrs. BENNETT and ASHBURY an audience, in which it was settled by your representative that, owing to a split in the Cambria's club-topsail, both parties should carry their block-headed jibs; and the contest was begun.

In his anxiety to see fair play, however, your reporter at first innocently took the lead, shooting off, at the given signal, far in advance of the two yachts. His surprise was therefore great when the latter suddenly hove to on their beam-ends, and declared an armistice, to permit of Mr. ASHBURY'S publishing the following:

Card.

Much as I appreciate the kindness and attention extended to me on all previous occasions in these waters, I must still politely insist that the Punchinelletto relinquish her natural and perhaps unavoidable tendency to take the wind out of everybody's sails, and submit to remain in the wake of these yachts during the continuance of the race. And I hereby challenge all fast-sailing yachts of over 100 tons burthen, and under 50, to a 15-mile race dead to windward and back again alive.

(Signed) ASHBURY.

Upon this your reporter manned the yard-arms, fired a salute of 100 guns, and directed the Oar-acular to back water; thereby giving the Dauntless the lead, which she retained up to the end of the race. By the clever management of her Tacks she succeeded in completely Nailing the Cambria. On the home-stretch, however, the latter began "eating up "on her to such an alarming degree, that it was feared the provisions of the Dauntless would not hold out. By putting the crew on half-rations of champagne and sponge-cake this awful calamity was averted.

Excited by the presence of danger, your reporter forgot his habitual caution, and giving his Oar-ist a hearing, made all sail for the mark-boat. The tow-line was passed