“I’m expecting a letter,” went on Ruby confusedly. “Perhaps you may have left one at my lodgings in Little Branston? I live at Mrs. Maidment’s at the corner of Green Lane.” The postman looked at her with an expression which would seem to indicate that Ruby’s place of abode was a matter of supreme indifference to him. “If any letter comes as is directed there, of course it will be left there,” he said, with a coldly business-like air. “You didn’t leave one for me, to-day, I suppose?” faltered Ruby. “Not as I know on,” returned Chris stolidly. Tears rushed to the girl’s eyes; she felt wounded, insulted by this sudden change from warm admiration--admiration which possibly might have ripened to something else--to complete indifference. She hastily turned away her head to conceal them, but not before she had caught sight of a kind of gleam in the postman’s brown eyes. “Are ye so terrible disappointed?” he inquired roughly, not to say harshly. “I--oh, yes, of course I am.” She spoke truly enough, poor girl, though her disappointment arose from another cause than the ostensible one. Chris eyed her sharply. “Well, it’ll come in time, I suppose!” he remarked, still in the same surly tone, “and when it _do_ come, you shall have it.” And thereupon he saluted, hitched up his bag, and walked away. Ruby went back to the school-porch, with a scarlet face and a mist before her eyes:-- “He’s a rude fellow,” she said; “I’ll think of him no more.” But she was in a manner forced to think of him. It was an unkind Fate, indeed, which decreed that Postman Chris Ryves’ beat should bring him under Ruby Damory’s notice twice in the day. Early in the morning, while still in her little lodging at the corner of Green Lane, she heard his brisk step ring out beneath her window, and looking down, as indeed she sometimes did from beneath the corner of her blind, she caught a glimpse of a blue uniform and a red head; but Postman Chris never looked up, and no letter was ever left for Miss Ruby Damory, care of Mrs. Maidment. Then as the church clock struck half-past four a tall figure was always to be seen swinging along behind the green hedge, which drew near the school-gate, and passed by the school-yard without a single glance at the mistress correcting exercises in the porch. It was out of pure contradictoriness of course that Ruby Damory learned to listen for that step and to watch for that figure. She grew thin and pale, slept brokenly, and dreamt frequently about Postman Chris; and Mrs. Maidment averred almost with tears that Miss Damory seemed to have no relish for her victuals, and could indeed be scarce persuaded to eat a radish with her tea. One day the girl took herself seriously to task. “I am a fool and worse,” she said. “I must make an end of it. The man does not care a snap of his fingers for me--I’ll try to forget he’s in the world.”