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,