"He thinks it smart to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down." Mr.Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not inhuman or unpardonable folly.

"As long as he doesn't meddle with the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said laughingly.

A dreadful recollection, that the Hickory Hill postmaster had used the inside of the bag to convey HIS foolishness, came across her.

It would never do to confess it now.

Her face must have shown some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal, half-reassuring air: "But enough of this.