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Breakfast passed over as usual; the post-bag came in; Miss Todd sorted and distributed the contents, and the girls retired to read their letters. At ten minutes to nine something happened. Hilary, with wide open eyes and flushed cheeks, came running along the hall. "Somebody's gone and taken my essay out of my desk!" she declared excitedly.
It chanced that at the moment the above letter was handed to the postmaster, and while the wax was being melted before the final sealing of the post-bag, a sailor lad, drenched to the skin and panting vehemently, dashed into the office. "Stop! stop!" he cried, "a letter about the wreck the Water Lily to the owners not too late, I hope?" "No, no, just in time. Here, in with it. There, all right.
The captain had hove to all night, and said he could give us four hours to come out, but the men told him it would not be possible because of the weather; as it was, one boat had two of its boards broken and very nearly had to return. Next we heard the joyful news that our surmise was right and that there were letters for us. The post-bag was soaked and some of its contents, but not our letters.
To avoid errors in the distribution, every post-bag was accompanied by a list, sent from the war department, on which each person to whom a letter was addressed must write a receipt. Colonel von Jaschinsky was therefore compelled to deliver to Lieutenant von Trenck both the letters which were addressed to him.
"Thank you for a very pretty speech. As for Magdalen," he continued, addressing his wife and Miss Garth, "she's an unbroken filly. Let her caper and kick in the paddock to her heart's content. Time enough to break her to harness when she gets a little older." The door opened, and Magdalen returned with the key. She unlocked the post-bag at the sideboard and poured out the letters in a heap.
While these two exchanged a hand-grasp and a look no more; but that was enough Miss Cascoigne sat, routed, but unconquered still. She might have made one more effort at warfare but that Barker opportunely entered with the evening post-bag. "Barker!" said Dr. Grey, as the man was closing the door. "Yes master." The master paused a second before speaking. "You know Sir Edwin Uniacke?"
And meeting Harold and his post-bag on his way home from Elbury, they raised such a tremendous cheer at him that poor Peggy seemed to make but three springs from the milestone to the bridge, and he could not so much as touch his cap by way of answer. Somehow, even after those droll customers were gone, every Saturday's reckoning was a satisfactory one. More always seemed to come in than went out.
"I must at any rate write a letter to Mary Snow," he said. And to Mary Snow he did write some three or four lines, Augustus sitting by the while. Augustus Staveley would have been very glad to know the contents, or rather the spirit of those lines; but nothing was said about them, and the letter was at last sealed up and intrusted to his care for the post-bag.
One day when the postman was ill, or detained by some accidental circumstance, he sent a man in his place. Bass went up to the man, curiously scanning his face, whilst the man rather retired from the dog, by no means liking his appearance. But as the man left the place, Bass followed him, shewing strong symptoms that he was determined to have the post-bag.
When aware of the compliments he was paying her, she looked at him, but his eyes were fixed on his pen, and no smile, no significant expression betrayed that he was aware of her observations; and even when he gave her the letter to put into the post-bag he looked quite innocent and unconcerned.
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