"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.

* * * * *