As the Bertrams were eating their strawberries off delicate Sevres plates on the evening of the day when Mr. Ingram had disclosed the parentage of poor Beatrice Meadowsweet, the postman was seen passing the window.

Benjafield had a very slow and aggravating gait.  The more impatient people were for their letters, the more tedious was he in his delivery.  Benjafield had been a fisherman in his day, and had a very sharp, withered old face.  He had a blind eye, too, and walked by the aid of a crutch but it was his boast that, notwithstanding his one eye and his lameness, no one had ever yet got the better of him.

“There’s Benjafield!” exclaimed Mabel.  “Shall I run and fetch the letters, mother?”

Mrs. Bertram rose slowly from her seat at the head of the board.

“The post is later than ever,” she remarked; “it is past the half-hour.  I shall go myself and speak to Benjafield.”

She walked slowly out through the open window.  She wore an evening dress of rusty black velvet with a long train.  It gave her a very imposing appearance, and the effect of her evening dress and her handsome face and imperious manners were so overpowering that the old postman, as he hobbled toward her, had to mutter under his breath: 

“Don’t forget your game leg, Benjafield, nor your wall eye, and don’t you be tooken down nor beholden to nobody.”

“Why is the post so late?” inquired Mrs. Bertram.  “It is more than half-past eight.”

“Eh!” exclaimed Benjafleld.

“I asked why the post was so late.”

“Eh?  I’m hard of hearing, your ladyship.”

He came a little nearer, and leered up in the most familiar way into the aristocratic face of Mrs. Bertram.

“Intolerable old man,” she muttered, aloud:  “Take the letters from him, Catherine, and bring them here.”

Then raising her voice to a thin scream, she continued: 

“I shall write to the general post-office on this subject; it is quite intolerable that in any part of England Her Majesty’s Post should be entrusted to incapable hands.”

Old Benjafield, fumbling in his bag, produced two letters which he presented to Catherine.  He did so with a dubious, inquiring glance at her mother, again informed the company generally that he was hard of hearing, and hobbled away.

One of the letters, addressed in a manly and dashing hand, was for Catherine.  The other, also in manly but decidedly cramped writing, was addressed to Mrs. Bertram.

She started when she saw the handwriting, instantly forgot old Benjafield, and disappeared into the house.

When she was gone Mabel danced up to her sister’s side, and looked over her shoulder at the thick envelope addressed in the manly hand.

“Kate, it’s from Loftie!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, it’s from Loftie,” responded Catherine.  “Let us come and sit under the elm-tree and read what he says, May.”