letters and stood in the office to read them. The train was not due
for fifteen minutes yet, and was very likely to be late. She had
letters from her mother, Ina, and aunt. They all told of the life
they were leading there, and expressed hope that she and her father
were well, and there was a great deal of love. It was all the usual
thing, for they wrote every day. There were also letters from them
all for Carroll. The Carroll family, when absent from one another,
were all good correspondents, with the exception of Carroll. There
was even a little letter from Eddy, which had been missent, because
he had spelled Banbridge like two words--Ban Bridge.

Charlotte read her letters, smiling over them, standing aloof by the
window. The post-office was fast thinning out. There had been the
customary crowd there at the arrival of the mail--the pushing and
shrieking children and the heavily shuffling loungers--all people who
never by any possibility got any letters, but who found a certain
excitement in frequenting the office at such times. Just as Charlotte
finished her last letter and replaced it in the envelope, Anderson
came in for his mail. He did not notice her, but went directly to his
box, which had a lock, opened it, and took out a pile of letters.
Charlotte stood looking at him. He looked very good and very handsome
to her. She thought to herself how very much better-looking he was
than Ina's husband. There was something about the manly squareness of
his shoulders, as he stood with his back towards her, examining his
letters, which made her tremble a little, she could not have told
why. Suddenly he looked up and saw her, and she felt that the color
flashed over her face, and was ashamed and angry. "Why should I do
so?" she asked herself. She made a curt, stiff little bow in response
to Anderson's greeting, and he passed her going out of the office
with his letters. Then she felt distressed.

"I need not have been rude because I was such a little idiot as to
blush when a man looked at me," she told herself. "It was not his
fault. He has always been lovely to us." She reviewed in her mind
just her appearance when she had given him that stiff little bow, and
she felt almost like crying with vexation. "Of course he does not
care how I bow to him," she thought, and somehow that thought seemed
to give her additional distress, "but, all the same, I should have
been at least polite, for he is very much a gentleman. I think he