Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870

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CHAPTER IX.

BALKS IN A BRUSH.

FLORA, having no relations in the world that she knew of, had, eversince her seventh new bonnet, known no other home than Macassar FemaleCollege, in the Alms-House, and regarded Miss CAROWTHERS as hermother-in-lore. Her memory of her own mother was of a lady-like personwho had swiftly waisted away in the effort to be always taken for herown daughter, and was, one day, brought down-stairs, by her husband, intwo pieces, from tight lacing. The sad separation (taking place justbefore a party of pleasure), had driven FLORA'S father into a frenzy ofgrief for his better halves; which was augmented to brain fever by Mr.SCHENCK, who, having given a Boreal policy to deceased, felt it his dutyto talk gloomily about wives who sometimes died apart after receivingunmerited cuts from their husbands, and to suggest a compromise of tenper cent, upon the amount of the policy, as a much more cheerfulsettlement than a coroner's inquest. FLORA'S betrothal had grown out ofthe soothing of Mr. POTTS'S last year of mental disorder by Mr. DROOD,an old partner in the grocery business, who, too, was a widower from hiswife's use of arsenic and lead for her complexion. The two bereavedfriends, after comparing tears and looking mournfully at each other'stongues, had talked themselves to death over the fluctuations in sugar;willing their respective children to marry in future for the sake ofkeeping up the controversy.

From the FLOWERPOT'S first arrival at the Alms-House, her new things,engagement to be married, and stock of chocolate caramels, had won thedeepest affections of her teachers and schoolmates; and, on the morningafter the sectional dispute between EDWIN and MONTGOMERY, when one ofthe young ladies had heard of it as a profound secret, no pains werespared by the whole tender-hearted school to make her believe thatneither of the young men was entirely given up yet by the consultingphysicians. It was whispered, indeed, that a knife or two might havepassed, and two or three guns been exchanged; but she was not to be atall worried, for persons had been known to get well with the tops oftheir heads off.

At an early hour, however, Miss PENDRAGON had paid a visit to herbrother, in Gospeler's Gulch; and, coming back with the intelligence,that, while he had been stabbed to the heart, it was chiefly by cruelinsinuations and an umbrella, was enabled to assure Miss CAROWTHERS, inconfidence, that nothing eligible for publication in the New York Sunhad really occurred. Thus, when the legal conqueror of Breachy Mr.BLODGETT entered that principal recitation-room of the Macassar,formally known as the Cackleorium, she had no difficulty in explainingaway the panic.

She said that "Unfounded Rumor, Ladies, is, we all know, a descriptivephrase applied by the Associated Press to all important foreign newsprocured a week or two in advance of its own similar European advices,by the Press Association[A]. We perceive then,

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