and the fleeting nature of all sublunary things.  Even Timotheus could not be with Tryphosa as much as he would have desired, and had to console himself with thoughts of the morrow, and visions of two people in a ferny hollow singing hymns out of one hymn-book.  The glory seemed to have departed from Bridesdale, the romance to have gone out of its existence on that humdrum Saturday.  The morning passed in drudgery, the dinner table in prosaic talk, and the hot afternoon was a weariness of the flesh and spirit.  Just about tea time the mail waggon passed the gate; there was nobody in it for Bridesdale.  When the quiet tea was over, the veteran lit his pipe, and he and Marjorie went to the post office to enquire for letters, and invest some of Eugene’s parting donations in candy.  Half the mail bag and more was for the Squire, the post-mistress said, and it made a large bundle, so that she had to tie it up in a huge circus poster, which, being a very religious woman, she had declined to tack up on the post-office wall.  “Marjorie,” whispered Mr. Terry, so that the post-mistress could not hear, “I wudn’t buoy any swates now, for I belave there’s a howll box iv thim in the mail for yeez.”  Accordingly, they left without a purchase, to the loss of the candy account at the store.

The circus poster and contents were deposited on the office table, and Mr. Carruthers called big Marjorie to sort the mail.  So Miss Carmichael appeared, and gave him his own letters and papers.  There were two from India for Mr. Terry, that had been forwarded from Toronto, and one from the same quarter for aunt Honoria.  Some United States documents were the colonel’s property, and a hotel envelope, with a Barrie postmark, bore the name of Miss Tryphena Hill.  The bulk of the mail was in one handwriting, which the Bridesdale post-mistress had seen before.  Only two letters were there, a thick one for aunt Honoria, and one of ordinary size for Mr Wilkinson, but there were several papers and magazines for that invalid, and at least half a dozen illustrated papers and as many magazines or paper-bound books for herself, which she knew contained material of some kind in which she had expressed an interest.  Then came three large thick packages, one marked “Misses Marjorie, Susan, and Honoria Carruthers,” another “Masters John and Michael Carruthers,” and the third “Miss Marjorie C. Thomas and Co.”  The young lady with the Co. laid violent hands upon her own property; but that of the young Carruthers was given to their mother, along with her letters.  Miss Du Plessis, failing to receive anything of her own, carried the dominie’s spoil to him, and found that some of the magazines, though sent to his name, were really meant for her, at least dear Farquhar said so.  Mrs. Carruthers opened her Toronto letter and read it over with amusement.  Then she held up an enclosure between forefinger and thumb, saying, “You see, Marjorie, it is unsealed, so I think I must read it, or give it to your mother to read first, in case it should not be right for you to receive it.”  But Miss Carmichael made a dash at the document, and bore it off triumphantly to her own room, along with her literary pabulum.  It was dated Friday afternoon, so that he could not have been long in the city when he wrote it, and ran thus:—­