Thus Mrs. Spruce gravely cogitated, while Maryllia herself, unaware of the manner in which her immortal destinies were being debated by the old housekeeper, put on her hat, and ran gaily across the lawn, her great dog bounding at her side, making for the usual short-cut across the fields to the village.  Arrived there she went straight to the post-office, a curious little lop-sided half-timbered cottage with a projecting window, wherein, through the dusty close-latticed panes could be spied various strange edibles, such as jars of acidulated drops, toffee, peppermint balls, and barley-sugar—­ likewise one or two stray oranges, some musty-looking cakes, a handful or so of old nuts, and slabs of chocolate protruding from shining wrappers of tin-foil,—­while a flagrant label of somebody’s ‘Choice Tea’ was suspended over the whole collection, like a flag of triumph.  The owner of this interesting stock-in-trade and the postmistress of St. Rest, was a quaint-looking little woman, very rosy, very round, very important in her manner, very brisk and bright with her eyes, but very slow with her fingers.

“Which I gets the rheumatiz so bad in my joints,” she was wont to say—­“that I often wonders ’ow I knows postage-stamps from telegram-forms an’ register papers from money-orders, an’ if you doos them things wrong Gove’nment never forgives you!”

“Ah, you’ll never get into no trouble with Gove’nment, Missis Tapple!” her gossips were wont to assure her, “For you be as ezack as ezack!”

A compliment which Mrs. Tapple accepted without demur, feeling it to be no more than her just due.  She was, however, in spite of her ‘ezack’ methods, always a little worried when anything out of the ordinary occurred, and she began to feel slightly flustered directly she saw Maryllia swing open her garden gate.  She had already, during the last few days, been at some trouble to decipher various telegrams which the lady of the Manor had sent down by Primmins for immediate despatch, such as one to a certain Lord Roxmouth which had run as follows:—­“No time to reply to your letter.  In love with pigs and poultry.”

“It is ‘pigs and poultry,’ ain’t it?” she had asked anxiously of Primmins, after studying the message for a considerable time through, her spectacles.  And Primmins, gravely studying it, too, had replied:—­

“It is undoubtedly ‘pigs and poultry.’”

“And it is ‘in love’ you think?” pursued Mrs. Tapple, with perplexity furrowing her brow.

“It is certainly ‘in love,’” rejoined Primmins, and the faintest suggestion of a wink affected his left eyelid.

Thereupon the telegram was ‘sent through’ to Riversford on its way to London, though not without serious misgivings in Mrs. Tapple’s mind as to whether it might not be returned with a ‘Gove’nment’ query as to its correctness.  And now, when Maryllia herself entered the office, and said smilingly, “Good-morning!  Some foreign telegram-forms, please!” Mrs. Tapple felt that the hour was come when her powers of intelligence were about to be tried to the utmost; and she accordingly began to experience vague qualms of uneasiness.