In explanation she would tell you that you had not put a stamp on it, or that she suspected there was money in it, or that you had addressed it to the wrong place.

I remember an old man, a relative of my own, who happened for once in his life to have several letters to post at one time.

The circumstance was so out of the common that he considered it only reasonable to make Lizzie a small present.
Perhaps the postmistress was belled; but if she did not "steam" the letters and confide their titbits to favoured friends of her own sex, it is difficult to see how all the gossip got out.

The schoolmaster once played an unmanly trick on her, with the view of catching her in the act.

He was a bachelor who had long been given up by all the maids in the town.