This was the first time of meeting since the great storm, and every one had something to tell about his own experiences. There was anxiety expressed about the enormous earth dam of the Nagales reservoir which supplied the Flume. If it had burst, as some one reported, untold-of damage would have been done; and moreover, the whole water-supply for the summer months’ irrigating would have been wasted. This was a terrible prospect, and especially so after a long drought of exceptional severity. But the postmaster, who was busy distributing the accumulation of several days’ mail, said there was no truth in the report. “I wish there was no truth in the news about poor old Strafford’s dam,” said some one. “Can’t you contradict it, Overleigh?” Ben shook his head. “It is only too true,” he said sorrowfully. “Well, it’s a miserable thing to happen, and so soon after his marriage,” said the postmaster. “Are you taking his mail, Mr. Holles?” “Yes,” answered Holles. “Great powers! Is this cart-load for him? Oh, I see, it’s mostly for his wife. What a stunning lot of papers! By Jove! I wish my people would send me some. The only thing I ever get from the old country is ‘The Young Christian at Home.’ And Lauderdale gets ‘The Christian Household.’ No wonder we are always depressed. Here, stay a moment, Ben. I’m not through with the shopping. I’ve nearly forgotten Mrs. Strafford’s sack of flour. And I want a tin of oysters. Graham is so upset about losing his three acres of olives, that he says the only possible thing to help him is _boiled oysters on toast_. Well, now I am about ready.” With a greeting here and a nod there, the two friends drove off. Ben took the reins, and Holles sorted the mail, and seemed greatly interested in the outsides of Mrs. Strafford’s newspapers and magazines, and in their insides too, for he held each one up to the light, looking through it as though through a telescope. “Well, I wish they were for me,” he said, as he pushed them away and lit his pipe. “But I don’t grudge them to her. I daresay she is terribly home-sick for old England: and the mail will cheer her up. Somehow or other I feel sorry for her--don’t you, Ben? What do you think of her?” “I don’t know,” said Ben, slowly.