had no relatives, or none whom she encouraged as correspondents, for, as the saying is, “she had married above her.”  For the same reason, perhaps, she had long since stopped the flow of sentimental letters from the girl-friends she had once possessed in Holsworthy, Devon.  If Mrs Bosenna now and again found herself lonely at Rilla Farm in her widowhood, it is to be feared the majority of her old acquaintances would have agreed in asserting, with a touch of satisfied spite, that she had herself to blame,—­and welcome!

“There’s two!” announced Dinah, bursting back into the kitchen and waving her capture. “Two!—­and the Troy postmark on both of ’em!”

“Put them down on the table, please.  And kindly take a look at the oven.  You needn’t let the bread burn, even if I am to take breakfast in the kitchen.”

“But ain’t you in a hurry to open them, mistress?” asked Dinah, pretending to go, still hanging on her heel.

“Maybe I am; maybe I ain’t.”  Mrs Bosenna picked up the two envelopes with a carelessness which was slightly overdone.  They were sealed, the pair of them.  She broke the seal of the first carefully, drew out the letter, and read—­

    “HONOURED MADAM,—­You will doubtless be surprised—­”

She turned to the last page and read the subscription—­

    “Yours obediently,”

       “TOBIAS HUNKEN.”

“Who’s it from, mistress?” asked Dinah, making pretence of a difficulty with the oven door.

“Nobody that concerns you,” snapped Mrs Bosenna, and hastily stowed the letter in the bosom of her bodice.  She picked up the other.  Of that, in turn, she broke the seal—­

    “HONOURED MADAM,—­”

The handwriting was somewhat superior.

“HONOURED MADAM,—­You will doubtless be surprised by the purport of this letter; as by the communication I feel myself impelled to make to you—­”

Mrs Bosenna, mildly surprised, in truth, turned the epistle over.  It was signed—­

    “Your obedient servant,

      “CAIUS HOCKEN.”

She drew the first letter from her bodice.  After the perusal of its first few sentences her cheeks put on a rosy glow.

But of a sudden she started, turned to the first letter again, and spread it on her lap.

“Well, if I ever!” breathed she, after a pause.

“A proposal!  I knew it was!” cried Dinah, swinging about from the oven door.

Mrs Bosenna, if she heard, did not seem to hear.  She was holding up both letters in turn, staring from the one to the other incredulously.  Her roseal colour came and went.

“Them and their parrots!  I’ll teach ’em!”

Before Dinah could ask what was the matter, a bell sounded.  It was the front door bell, which rang just within the porch.