duty.

"Eh, preserve us, sirs!" said the butcher's wife, "there's ten--
eleven--twall letters to Tennant and Co.--thae folk do mair business than
a' the rest o' the burgh."

"Ay; but see, lass," answered the baker's lady, "there's twa o' them
faulded unco square, and sealed at the tae side--I doubt there will be
protested bills in them."

"Is there ony letters come yet for Jenny Caxon?" inquired the woman of
joints and giblets; "the lieutenant's been awa three weeks."

"Just ane on Tuesday was a week," answered the dame of letters.

"Wast a ship-letter?" asked the Fornerina.

"In troth wast."

"It wad be frae the lieutenant then," replied the mistress of the
rolls, somewhat disappointed--"I never thought he wad hae lookit ower his
shouther after her."

"Od, here's another," quoth Mrs. Mailsetter. "A ship-letter--post-mark,
Sunderland." All rushed to seize it.--"Na, na, leddies," said Mrs.
Mailsetter, interfering; "I hae had eneugh o' that wark--Ken ye that Mr.
Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for
a complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset's that ye
opened, Mrs. Shortcake?"

"Me opened!" answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; "ye ken
yoursell, madam, it just cam open o' free will in my hand--what could I
help it?--folk suld seal wi' better wax."

"Weel I wot that's true, too," said Mrs. Mailsetter, who kept a shop of
small wares, "and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye
ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o't is, that we'll
lose the place gin there's ony mair complaints o' the kind."

"Hout, lass--the provost will take care o' that."

"Na, na, I'll neither trust to provost nor bailier" said the
postmistress,--"but I wad aye be obliging and neighbourly, and I'm no
again your looking at the outside of a letter neither--See, the seal has
an anchor on't--he's done't wi' ane o' his buttons, I'm thinking."

"Show me! show me!" quoth the wives of the chief butcher and chief
baker; and threw themselves on the supposed love-letter, like the weird
sisters in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and
scarcely less malignant. Mrs. Heukbane was a tall woman--she held the
precious epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs. Shortcake, a
little squat personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have her share
of the investigation.

"Ay, it's frae him, sure eneugh," said the butcher's lady;--"I can read
Rich