Poppea of the Post-Office

d farm folk having their mid-day meal at noon. While a number of these families kept the same hours in their winter city life, during the past four or five seasons there had been a

innovation to upset the almost histori

ty, where she was preparing to inaugurate a better system of work, the material for which was tied in a great bundle in the porch,-cotto

shawl with an inconspicuous pin of Scotch pebbles that blended with the fabric. Her bonnet was of finely braided straw of soft brown, the chaise-top front being filled in with geraniums of crimson velvet; the broad strings of brown watered ribbon w

ny small drawers of her dressing-table, did not answ

se I've promised dear quaint Oliver Gilbert that I will go to

t a rather public expression of our approval of what the conser

ur standpoint it may seem strange, and I have no wish to compromise you. I've come to think now that as we are both past forty and likely to remain the Misses Felton and live in one house to the end of our days, it is time that, at least, we allow ourselves to hold different opinions. It will mak

t out, yet Miss Felton knew that some great change had come over her volatile sister,

give ornaments to a foundling of whose antecedents we know

is everything we could wish for. There, don't be vexed; you are so compounded of judgment and righteousness that you can't possibly understand people

d her curls, but so rapid and nervous were the fragile lady's movements that she had the air of a paradise bird pluming itself,

ound stones freshly whitewashed, that outlined the path. While two settees, also spotless white, of the form once used in schools, set off the bit of lawn, one resting under a tall lilac bush, the other standing aimlessly in the open, as though it lacked the decision of character necessa

step, and rushing out, laid hold of the boxes of flowers with one h

he pluck to attack that hall tread and turn it. It's now dark figgers on light, but bein' three ply, if turned it would be light on dark and a

uainted as they are this way. Besides, there being such a heap o' ornery thievin' ones, the bunnits might get mixed or done away with if laid off'n. Still, bein' as it's right here in to

in two yellow and brown lustre pitchers on the mantel-shelf, and laying the little bouquet beside the de

e lady baby?" she

is being the one to open the door that night, you know." (This was as near as Satira ever allowed herself to approach the forbidden subject.) "He balked considerable, not being used to society down here at the centre, and settin'

irs in what's called a waterfall, and those as has looks like they'd put spice bags on the back of their necks for a cr

Mr. Latimer that does it. Gilbert he wanted more, but, says I, not having cleaned house I'm not ready for a charge o' the wh

at the old Academy (that little building 'nexed behind the new one), he's always thought a sight of books. In fact, he got something of the taste from pa,

s ever since they set foot in this land o' promise near two hundred years ago, and as they slumped down in one spot and d

lves in grandsir' Harley's liberary. My, but isn't there a sight of books there! They do claim that grandsir' Harle

double names he'd never heard of. So he says to himself, says he, 'I'll put a few down; they'll come handy some day mebbe, and freshen up the family,' and so he did, and after ma died we found his pocket-book all full of

Harlow, Robinson Crusoe, Charlotte Temple, Daniel Defoe, Oliver Goldsmith, Cotton Mather, and lastly me, with Oliver, all that's living. I was called f

the West Hill graveyard a lot. The marble man that came from Boston to set up John Angus's fat

eep and high that a misstep was all that lay between the top and bottom. In the foreroom Mr. Latimer was alone, stan

can birth and ancestry, he was a type of the old-world vicar, well born and cultured, yet who, through his intense introspection, spends his life in a small church of a remote parish, seeing each morning's sun through the dimly co

ack sympathy. Iron-gray hair belied his age, which was barely forty years. In New England towns at this time people looked askance at men of this type. Patriotism rushed to any form of dissent

what he might not see through. The Misses Felton, though not of his fold, had given St. Luke's an organ, such as was not known in Newfield County, and through it, Latimer's influence went out even m

es a tired woman with a fretful, half-sick child, or a pauper laborer creeping in to rest

is going again into the fray after time had healed his wounds and let him at least build a shelter around his sorrow? Talk

ay before; I only thought of the amusement of the child's compa

lbert and 'Lisha Potts followed. It was not until Potts had come quite into the room, crossing to between the centre-table and Mary's melodeon that stood between the windows, that he saw M

ds toward her new friend, quietly allowed her to fasten the corals upon the plump, bare neck, and a

eral conversatio

? I cannot wait another

and showing the fly leaf, upon which, in characters painfully round and precise, was

way in which the quiet man had settled the matter of bir

hen Latim

re did you find th

family in it somehow. And the other-I've read it somewh

ro's wives; would not something nearer home be more suitable, neighbor Gilbert

or spoken of in Mr. Plutarch's books. Poppea comes near to being a posy too,-poppies, nice chee

rs according to his ritual, and their duties, Gil

were, in their place of responsibility in case of need; under these circumstances,

she had been reading the sentences of promise in the prayer-book that Mr. Latimer had marked. "I couldn't

the choice must be outside of me, parson,"

whom one can rely to take a

Miss Emmy, and yo

-member," said Potts, his words

ter," said Miss Emmy; yet at the same time, through the yea

as if he saw some special significance in this strange combination, then whispered to Miss Emmy that up

ny years, threw back the lid, coaxed the fitful breath and reluctant keys to speak again, so gently that there

ho Thy floc

epherd's te

eble gentl

ambs Thy bo

old. How did you know?" asked Gilbert when the hymn en

but God does

nding with the sentence, "If thou art not already baptized, Julia Poppe

there are enough other children named that 'tisn't kno

ile upon Stephen Latimer's face, the child laughed and crowed, and succeeded in wriggling from Miss Emmy's arms down to the floor, where the pup w

t (I've fruit cake coming for we-all). It was the last of the limed eggs I used, and though fresh to taste, they do

far into the family, as to cut it, I mean break it, a

ing the pair on the floor. "Mr. Gilbert, you promised

neral McClellan, 'cause he's always busy barking and running about, p

s bulging from the pocket of his overcoat. "It's tin soldiers and a little cannon; fath

n front and in bottom, and stooping over the child, kissed the rim of her ear that had an odd break in its curve like the blemish on the petal of a flower that

she was absorbed in the ecsta