It was usual for her at this hour to stop at the tavern for the mail which might be ready there, and herself take it to the post-office. In midsummer this mail was quite an important item, but at this time of year it amounted to little; nevertheless, she followed what had become the custom. She found one of the daughters of the house in the throes of composition. "Oh, Lucyet," she exclaimed, "you don't say that's you! I want this to go to-night the worst way. Ain't you early?" "Yes, I guess I am," said Lucyet, rather wearily. "If you'll set on the piazzer and wait, I'll finish up in just a minute. You see we had to get dinner for two gentlemen as came down to go fishin' to-morrer, and it sorter put me back. I wish you'd wait." "Well, I guess I can wait a few minutes," said Lucyet, the line between her personal and her official capacity being sometimes a difficult one to maintain rigidly. She seated herself on the piazza, not observing that she was just outside of the window of the room within which the two fishermen were smoking and talking in a desultory fashion. Later their voices fell idly on her ear, speaking a language she only half understood, blending with the few lazy sounds of the afternoon. The conversation was really extremely desultory, being chiefly maintained by the younger man of the two, who lounged on the sofa of unoriental luxury with a thorough-going perversion of the maker's plan,--his head being where his feet ought to have been and his feet hanging over the portion originally intended for the back of his head. The other man wore the frown of absorption as, a pencil in his hand, he worried through some pages of manuscript. "Oh, I say," observed the idler, "ain't you 'most through slaughtering the innocents? I want to take that walk." "I told you half an hour ago that if I could have a few uninterrupted minutes I'd be with you," answered the other man, without looking up. "They haven't fallen in my way yet." "It's pity that moves me to speech," rejoined the first speaker, rising and sauntering to the window,--not that one outside of which Lucyet was sitting,--"pity for those young souls throbbing with the consciousness of power who may have forgotten to enclose a stamp for return. I feel when I interrupt you as if I were holding back the remorseless wheel of fate." His companion allowed this speculative remark to pass without reply. The idler sauntered back to the table. "What'll you bet, now, before you go any further, that it'll go into the waste-basket?" "Stamped and addressed envelope enclosed," observed the patient editor, absently. "Well, what odds will you give me of its being not necessarily devoid of literary merit, but unfitted for the special uses of your magazine?" The other was still silent as he laid aside another page.