r times I had met
with a foreign-looking gentleman at Euston-square, standing at the door
of the carriage nearest the post-office van, and eyeing the heavy bags as
they were transferred from my care to the custody of the officials from
the General Post-office. But though I felt amused and somewhat nettled
at this needless precaution, I took no further notice of the man, except
to observe that he had the swarthy aspect of a foreigner, and that he
kept his face well away from the light of the lamps. Except for these
things, and after the first time or two, the Premier's despatch-box
interested me no more than any other part of my charge. My work had been
doubly monotonous for some time past, and I began to think it time to get
up some little entertainment with my unknown friends, the Cliftons. I
was just thinking of it as the train stopped at the station about a mile
from the town where they lived, and their postman, a gruff matter-of-fact
fellow--you could see it in every line of his face--put in the
letter-bags, and with them a letter addressed to me. It was in an
official envelope, "On Her Majesty's Service," and the seal was an
official seal. On the folded paper inside it (folded officially also) I
read the following order: "Mr. Wilcox is requested to permit the bearer,
the daughter of the postmaster at Eaton, to see the working of the
railway post-office during the up-journey." The writing I knew well as
being that of one of the surveyor's clerks, and the signature was Mr.
Huntingdon's. The bearer of the order presented herself at the door, the
snorting of the engine gave notice of the instant departure of the train,
I held out my hand, the young lady sprang lightly and deftly into the
van, and we were off again on our midnight journey.

She was a small slight creature, one of those slender little girls one
never thinks of as being a woman, dressed neatly and plainly in a dark
dress, with a veil hanging a little over her face and tied under her
chin: the most noticeable thing about her appearance being a great mass
of light hair, almost yellow, which had got loose in some way, and fell
down her neck in thick wavy tresses. She had a free pleasant way about
her, not in the least bold or forward, which in a minute or two made her
presence seem the most natural thing in the world. As she stood beside
me before the row of boxes into which I was sorting my letters, she asked
questions and I answered as if it were