and despatched, which occupies us till six
o'clock. The letter-office must be opened to
the public at seven, and the money-order office
at ten. At eleven, there is a mail from our
county town, and one to be sent to London.
We go on all day, until our great nightwork
begins, which lasts till after ten, when we send out
our greatest number of bags."

"What part does our father take in the work?"
I inquired.

"He is more involved in it than he used to
be," she replied; "his accounts have to be
strictly and punctually attended to; he has all
the letters of complaint and inquiry to answer;
he is required to inspect the sub-offices, and see
that every official performs his duty; in short,
he has more than forty persons to superintend
and to pay. He is getting a very old man now."
"So the post-office work actually requires
three persons to do it?" I asked.

"Two persons could not possibly do it," she
replied; "morning, noon, and night its claims
require our full attention. I could not manage
in the night without the assistance of the town
letter-carrier, who brings the bags from the
station. This is no part of his duty, but by helping
me he is able to get some of the town letters
for the lawyers and other people who are willing
to pay him, and deliver them before six in the
morning; it is an irregularity, of course, but I
do not know what I should do if we were
forbidden his assistance."

"Well, Anna," I said, after .a long pause, and
I raised her bowed-down head that I might look
keenly into her eyes, "after all this hand-to-hand
life, is there any of the woman left in you?
Are you not crusted over with misanthropy?"

"Not quite," she answered, smiling; "I have
a little love left for you and Ettie and my father.
But it is rather a weary thing to be chained to
the office-counter all the days of my youth; and
it is a very painful thing to sacrifice health and
spirits and—"

"Beauty!" I added. "Yet beauty and
enjoyment and health are not the chief things
a woman cares for. Has there been no time
for other thoughts to creep in? No time
to fancy yourself in another home, with all your
future life lying cheerful and blessed before
you?"

"I had such a dream once," she replied, 'but
it was a vain dream without foundation."
"Tell me all about it," I said.
"I will do so," she answered, "and then we
will not speak of it again, for I think girls often
waste their time and lower their own delicacy by
talking and thinking of young men."

"How much time every day do you think we
might lawfully devote to such a subject?"
I asked, slyly.

"Well, perhaps ten minutes," she added, with
her old honest naïveté; "or, if you are positively
engaged, and had to write, half an hour would
not be too much. But it seems scarcely modest
to talk much of them, even to one's sister."

In the quiet hour after midnight, sitting alone
upon the kitchen hearth, with such faint and
uncertain light as tempts us to unreserved
confidences, because a dim but not altogether
impervious veil shades our tell-tale faces, my twin-
sister read to me from the pages of her memory
her own version of the old, old story, which
constitutes the romance of every woman's life.
Seven years before its first words had been
syllabled to her, and, with the beautiful reticence
of her constant nature, she lingered faithfully
over its remembrance, dating all things by it as
the sacred era of her history, and enshrining it
in her heart as the period of her fullest life.

She said I must easily recollect Stephen Ellesmere,
the eldest son of the proud and wealthy
Tonwell banker: a handsome, gay, frank boy,
who had been our admiration when we were both
young girls at school. He returned from college
at the age of twenty-three, soon after I left home,
with the intention of taking some part in the
work of the bank, as a preliminary to becoming
a partner. He cared little for business beyond
bringing the letters to the post-office daily, and
in his free, off-hand manner he had assumed a
right of entering the office, instead of delivering
them through the window. In Anna's first
feeling of loneliness after my departure, he had
appeared as one who brought a temporary relief
and gaiety; and so it came to pass that they
were mutually attracted, he by her quiet, melancholy
gentleness, and she by his frank and cordial
friendlness. My father was blind to what was
going on, and his family could never have
imagined such an infatuation on his part.

"It was downright insanity," I exclaimed,
"for you and Stephen Ellesmere to care for
each other."

"I could not help it," she said, simply. "I will
tell you how we came to understand one another.
It was one sunny winter's day after Christmas, and
I was making mince-pies at this dresser. Ettie
had gone out with cousin Rhoda, and as I had
the office to mind, I opened the little door
between it and the kitchen. It was a pleasant
morning, the sparrows were chirping quite
blithely on the rockery under the window, and I
began singing to myself, so I did not hear Mr.
Stephen come in; but, looking round, I saw
him standing in the doorway, quietly smiling at
me. He asked me to go on with my work,
and let him warm himself at my fire, and I
did so, while he stood looking on, and telling
me of all the grand Christmas parties he
had been at. Then he talked some nonsense
about mince-pies being nicer if made by a
sister or a wife; but I laughed so much
at the idea of any one belonging to him
condescending to make mince-pies, that he was
quite disconcerted and silenced for a few miuutes,
until I drew some from the oven, and as they
were nicely baked I offered him one."

"Anna!" I cried, with feigned indignation.

"I did not mean it, I assure you." she said,
vehemently; "I never thought of encouraging
him. I scarcely know what Stephen said, but I
knew from that moment that he believed he
loved me."

"And what did he do?" I asked.