"It's by EDWINS, there!" explains Mr. BUMSTEAD, triumphantly. "Just look
at him as he sits there both together, with all his happiness cut out
for him, and his dislike of Southerners his only fault."

"If I could only draw Miss PENDRAGON, now," says EDWIN DROOD, rather
flattered, "I might do better. A good sharp nose and Southern complexion
help wonderfully in the expression of a picture."

"Perhaps my sister would prefer to choose her own artist," remarks
MONTGOMERY, to whom Mr. BUMSTEAD has just poured out some more lemon
tea.

"Say a Southern one, for instance, who might use some of the flying
colors that were always warranted to run when our boys got after yours
in the late war," responds EDWIN, to whom his attentive uncle has also
poured out some more lemon tea for his cold.

"For instance--at Fredericksburgh," observes MONTGOMERY.

"I was thinking of Fort Donelson," returns EDWIN.

The conservative BUMSTEAD strives anxiously to allay the irritation of
his young guests by prodding first one and then the other with his
umbrella; and, in an attempt to hold both of them and the picture behind
him in one commanding glance under his sun-bonnet, presents a phase of
strabismus seldom attained by human eyes.

"If I only had you down where I come from, Mr. DROOD," cries MONTGOMERY,
tickled into ungovernable wrath by the ferule of the umbrella, I'd tar