beauty, and a reigning toast for miles round:
she had scores of admirers, but behaved very
scornfully to all of them, and she had acquired a
reputation of being thoroughly heartless, when
she chose to tumble head over ears in love with
a Mr. Butterworth, a fair-haired, mild, spooney
young man, who had come up from Oxford to
read with my father during the long vacation.
Of course Mr. Butterworth responded, and the
affair was progressing to the great satisfaction of
the lovers, and the intense delight of my father,
who thereby was relieved from much of Mr.
Butterworth's society, and all his tuition. But
when my grandfather, who was what is called
"one of the old school," a remarkably peppery
veteran, discovered what was going on, he
showed Mr. Butterworth the door, and was with
great difficulty restrained from kicking him
through it. Aunt Letitia wept and sulked by
turns, but it was of no use, and soon afterwards
my father heard that Butterworth had left
Oxford, and gone out as private secretary and
companion to an old gentleman who held some high
official appointment in South America. Miss
Letitia redoubled her lamentations, but that was
the last that was heard of Mr. Butterworth.

Until years after, when my grandfather had
been long since dead, my father long since
married, myself and my sister long since born, and
my Aunt Letitia long since resident with us at
The Grove, my father, in London on some
business, accidentally ran against a portly gentleman
in the Strand, who, turning round with hurt
dignity, revealed the features of the mild Mr.
Butterworth of bygone years. He told my father
that his patron had died, leaving him his fortune;
that he had married in South America, but that
his wife had died within a twelvemonth of their
union, and that he had come home to settle in
England. He asked my father for all his news,
and wound up by saying, "And—Miss Letitia—
is—she—still——?" And my father said she
was—still——but that Butterworth had better
see for himself. This proposition seemed to suit
Mr. Butterworth entirely. He should be in
Devonshire about the end of the year; he had
business at Exeter. Finally, it was decided that
he should dine on New Year's-day at The Grove,
and pass the night there.

When my father came home with the news,
my Aunt Letitia was tremendously affected. We
noticed next morning that a kind of dust-trap of
black lace, skewered on to a comb which she was
in the habit of wearing at the back of her head,
had been got rid of, and that she had a mass of
plaits in its place; we noticed that the usual
night-shirt hemming for the charity children had
been put aside, and that a large portion of her
day was spent in devouring the poetical works of
the late Lord Byron, in a Galignani Edition
brought from Paris by my father many years
before. We noticed—we could not help noticing
—how pretty she looked with her bright
complexion, her white teeth, her neat little figure,
and as the days passed by she seemed to grow
more and more animated. One day, however—
I remember it perfectly, it was the 16th of
December, and we had boiled beef for dinner—
my aunt was taken dreadfully ill; it was at the
dinner-table, when, without the slightest warning,
she suddenly gave a sharp scream, placed
her handkerchief to her mouth, and rushed from
the room. My mother followed, and so did my
sister, but the latter had my aunt's bedroom
door slammed in her face. When my mother
rejoined us, she had a little private conversation
with my father, and we were then told that Aunt
Letitia was very ill, and would probably have to
keep her room for many days. All sorts of
invalid's delicacies, broth, soups, calf's-foot jelly,
and sago puddings, were sent up to her, but she
did not reappear amongst us, and it seemed very
doubtful whether she would be able to do so by
the time of Mr. Butterworth's visit.

I must now change the venue, as the lawyers
call it, of my story. At midnight, on the night
when Mr. Twinch posted his letter, the down
night-mail running between Paddington and
Plymouth was within ten miles of the station at
Exeter. In the travelling post-office two clerks,
with their warm caps drawn far down over their
ears, were sorting letters for dear life, one or
other of them turning round now and then and
objurgating old Barnett, the mail guard, who
occasionally opened the window and pushed his
head out to inform himself of the train's whereabout,
bringing it back always with a puff, and a
snort, and an exclamation that the frost was a
"reg'lar black 'un to-night, and no mistake."
Close upon Exeter now, all old Barnett's sacks
for delivery are ready on the floor close by the
door, handy for the porters to seize, old Barnett
himself sitting on the pile, clapping his hands,
stamping his feet, and whistling to himself
softly the while. With a protracted grind, a
bump, and a shriek, the train ran alongside the
Exeter platform, and old Barnett pushed back
the sliding door of the travelling-office and
handed the sacks to the expectant porter. But
ere the man touched them, he said, while his face
was ghastly white and his voice trembled, "Lord
Mr. Barnett! such a smash to-night!"

"Smash!" said old Barnett; "what, an
accident?"

"Pooh!" said the porter, "not that, that
would be nothing—no—they've robbed the
up-mail!"

"Robbed the up-mail!"

"Ah, tender broke open, bags all cut and
hacked, and letters all strewn about the floor.
You never see such like!"

"The deuce they have!" said Barnett, after a
moment's pause; "well, Simon, my boy, I'll
take devilish good care they don't rob my mail.
Here, clear these bags out, and let's pass." He
jumped down on to the platform, ran to the next
carriage, which was the "post-office tender," a
second-class carriage fitted up for the reception of
mail-bags, unlocked the door with a key, saw all
secure, relocked the door, and returned to the