intricate details of a neglected business, I remembered
the daily warping cares, the petty economies in
housekeeping, and the harassment of perpetual
claims upon our forethought and energy. My
father was a stationer and postmaster in the town
of Tonwell; and, upon my twin-sister Anna and
myself, now devolved the chief management of
both concerns. At that time our townsmen were
not a reading or a writing people, and the work
was not too much for us; but the perplexities
arising from our ignorance of the world, and the
want of that sanguine confidence with which
young men encounter cares and responsibilities,
had been the burden which had worn out the
elasticity of our spirits, and sent me from the
precarious resources of home to seek a more
certain profit in the occupation of an English
governess in a family resident abroad. Our
youngest sister, Ettie, nine years our junior, had
been well educated by the result of my efforts.
I, now six-and-twenty, had returned to take once
more a share in the greatly increased duties of
the post-office.

All the day my father and sisters had been
unconsciously comparing me with my former
self, and I had watched them furtively, seeking
to determine what alterations time had wrought.
My father had become a bowed-down, hoary-
headed old man, fitted only for a comfortable
retirement, but, in reality, more engaged in
business than during the prime of his life,
soon wearied with the unwonted exertions
required by his official post. Ettie had grown up
into a lively and beautiful girl of seventeen,
amiable, impulsive, and passionately attached
to our father; all whose opinions she
reverenced unquestioningly, and to whose
indulgent fondness she had been accustomed to appeal
against Anna's decisions. But I silently noted the
greatest change in my twin-sister. As she sat
quietly beside me, her thick hair pushed back from
her face, I saw, with sorrow, that her cheeks and
lips were pale; her clear grey eyes, that used
to wear a look of quiet hopefulness, were dimmed
and careworn, and her mouth did not relax so
quickly into smiles as in days of old. She had
an air of languor and unquietness.

"It is not worth while killing one's self to
get a living," I said, gently stroking her wavy
hair.

"I shall not kill myself now," she answered,
smiling sadly. "I think I should, if you
had not come home; for I cannot help worrying
a little, now and then, about business. I have
not half the influence over my father that you
will have. He will think you know more of the
world than I know, because you have been abroad,
and I have only looked at it through the post-
office window."

"Not a very good place for observation," I
remarked.

"Not at all, if you wish to keep friends with
it," Anna said. "The public are not always
civil teachers. But I am not thinking of that
just now. I must give you some idea of how
my father goes on. We are getting more and
more into debt every week. He orders nothing
for the shop but patent medicines and books
from the Tract Society. We have pills of
every description in such abundance, that, if all
known and unknown diseases attacked the
townspeople, we could supply specifics for each.
As for religious books, the house is crammed
with them, and very few persons care to buy
them, except to give away, or the clergymen
and ministers, who never pay for some months,
and then want discount. Of course, the old
publishing firms with whom my father used to
do business send in their unpaid accounts, and
we have no means of meeting them."

"I thought my last remittances would have
helped you a little," I said.

"It was like a drop in a bucket," she replied;
"still, I intended to pay two or three little
bills in the town with it. But I am so sorry
my father is good, and kind, and clever, and a
father to respect and reverence in many things.
Everybody thinks highly of him; but he has
not an atom of worldly forethought or prudence,
and the last ten pounds you sent, he gave
towards building a day-school connected with his
chapel. I did not know it till I saw it on the
subscription list, and, when I expostulated with
him, he said there would be a blessing upon it,
and he trusted to Providence to meet a bill that
was to fall due the next week. I had to be the
Providence, and borrow the money wherever I
could. I am afraid you will blame me, Mary,
but I have quite left off going to chapel with
my father and Ettie, partly because he gives
more than we can afford at collections, and it
made me feel angry to see it. I go to church
now."

"Church or chapel is all the same to me," I
replied.

"I am afraid going abroad has made you a
latitudinarian," she said, anxiously.

"We won't have any theology to-night," I
answered, kissing her grave face; "tell me about
the office work."

"It is altogether altered," she said, with an
oppressed, careworn look; "you remember our
work used to be over at six in the evening,
when the ostler from the Eagle came on horse-
back to take our seven or eight little letter-bags to
meet the mail-coach on the London road; but, as
soon as the railway was finished, the trade of
Tonwell increased wonderfully, and now a great
number of letters are received and despatched
here—an average of thirty thousand a week
passes through our office; during each day fifty
bags come in, and the same number of course go
out; all the colliery and iron-works in the
neighbourhood are put into our district, and thirty
rural offices are under ours, and require my
father's occasional inspection; we have to look
sharply after them."

"What are the times for the arrival and
departure of the mails?" I asked.

"I will tell you briefly," she answered,
"but you will learn them soon enough by practice.
There is, first, the great morning mail,
which comes in at three in the morning. Then, our
own bags for the sub-offices have to he made up