It had always been the custom at Woodbine and Uplands to send to Four Corners twice daily for the mail, the children as a rule doing the errand and only too glad of the diversion, for they never failed to hear some bit of neighborhood gossip at the post office, or meet friends from some of the adjacent estates. Moreover, there was invariably the speculation regarding the writers of the letters taken from the box even when the letters were addressed to other members of their respective families, for neither Beverly, Athol or Archie had extensive correspondence with the world beyond the mountains. Just now, however, a new and vital interest had arisen, for after a grave family conclave it had been definitely settled that the time had arrived when Beverly and Athol must break away from the old order of things and be sent to boarding schools. Up to the present time a governess or a tutor had taught their young ideas to shoot, (straight or otherwise) with Admiral Seldon as head of the discipline department, a position by no means a sinecure since Beverly represented one-half the need of such a department. Until the children were twelve the governess had been all sufficient but at that point Athol rebelled at being "a sissy" and demanded a tutor, Beverly entirely concurring in his views. So a tutor had been installed and had remained until the previous July, when he was called to fill a more lucrative position elsewhere. Thus Woodbine's young shoots were left without a trainer, to the dismay of its older members and distress of its younger ones, for both Beverly and Athol had grown very fond of Norman Lee, who seemed but little older than themselves, though in reality quite ten years their senior. In the schoolroom he had been the staid, dignified instructor but beyond its walls no better chum and comrade could have been found. He was hale-fellow in all their good times and frolics. Consequently his resignation "just broke up the whole outfit," as Athol put it, and both children vowed they wouldn't have anybody else at Woodbine because nobody else could ever be half so nice as Norman Lee. Long before the three years of his tutorship ended he had become "Norman" to all the household, even the children adopting the more familiar appellation beyond the schoolroom doors, though within it the concession of "Mr. Norman" was yielded, which secretly amused the young tutor not a little, and often caused him to wonder how the boy and girl contrived to maintain the attitude so consistently and with such perfect gravity. For four hours of the day he might have been Methuselah's own brother from their standpoint but upon the school-room's threshold they dropped as garments the relations of pupils and teacher and became the best of good chums. It had been a singularly happy relation and it was not surprising that it seemed to them well-nigh impossible to renew it with an entire stranger.