her permission."

CHAPTER IV. MY LADY'S MISSIVE.

To the next coffee-house he speeds,
Takes up the news, some scraps he reads.--GAY.

Though Carminster was a cathedral city, the Special General Post only
came in once a week, and was liable to delay through storms, snows, mire
and highwaymen, so that its arrival was as great an event as is now
the coming in of a mail steamer to a colonial harbour. The "post" was
a stout countryman, with a red coat, tall jackboots and a huge hat.
He rode a strong horse, which carried, _en croupe_, an immense pack,
covered with oiled canvas, rising high enough to support his back, while
he blew a long horn to announce his arrival.

Letters were rare and very expensive articles unless franked by a Member
of Parliament, but gazettes and newsletters formed a large portion of
his freight. No private gentleman except the Dean and Sir George Herries
went to the extravagance of taking in a newspaper on his own account,
but there was a club who subscribed for the _Daily Gazetteer_, the
_Tatler_, and one or two other infant forms of periodical literature.
These were hastily skimmed on their first arrival at the club-room at
the White Dragon, lay on the table to be more deliberately conned for
a week, and finally were divided among the members to be handed about
among the families and dependants as long as they would hold together.

Major Delavie never willingly missed the coming of the mail, for his
foreign experiences gave him keen interest in the war between France and
Austria, and he watched the campaigns of his beloved Prince Eugene with
untiring enthusiasm, being, moreover, in the flattering position of
general interpreter and guide to his neighbours through the scanty
articles on foreign intelligence.

It was about ten days after the syllabub party, when he had quite
recovered his ordinary health, that he mounted his stout pony in his
military undress, his cocked hat perched on his well-powdered bob-wig,
with a queue half-way down his dark green gold-laced coat, and with
his long jack-boots carefully settle by Palmer over the knee that would
never cease to give him trouble.

Thus he slowly ambled into the town, catching on his way distant toots
of the postman's horn. In due time he made his way into the High
Street, broad and unpaved, with rows of lime or poplar trees before the
principal houses, the most modern of which were of red brick, with heavy
sash-windows, la