Suburban Ironfields being, as has been stated, a poor relation of the opulent city, fared badly enough in all respects, after the fashion of all poor relations. Every comfort, every luxury, every improvement pertaining to nineteenth century civilisation was to be found in Ironfields itself; but the quondam village from whence it had sprung retained many of its primitive barbarisms. This was especially the case with the post office, a low-roofed, dingy little house squeezed into an odd corner of the crooked main street, and presided over by an elderly lady named Mrs. Wevelspoke and her son Abraham. Ironfields magnates--dwellers in the palatial residences beyond the village--received their correspondence straight from the prompt, businesslike office of the city itself; but this unhappy little town depended for the transmission and delivery of its letters on old Mrs. Wevelspoke and her snail-footed son. Many complaints had been made about the disgraceful way in which this place was conducted; but as the complainants were mostly poor people, no attention was paid to their remonstrances, and Mrs. Wevelspoke and her son went on in their own quiet way, delivering letters late, delivering them to the wrong people, and very often not delivering them at all. The postmistress herself was a snuffy old woman of great antiquity, with a shrivelled face, two dull eyes like those of a dead codfish, a toothless mouth, and a wisp of straggling gray hair generally hidden under a dingy black straw bonnet with rusty velvet trimmings; she wore a doubtfully black gown, which had acquired a greenish tinge from great age, a tartan shawl of faded colours pinned over her bony shoulders, and rusty mittens on her skinny hands. She always wore her bonnet--it was her badge, her symbol, her sign of authority; and although, perhaps, she did not, as scandal averred, sleep in it all night, she certainly wore it all day. She was deaf, too, and spoke to other people in a shrill, loud voice, like a querulous wind, as if she thought, as she did, that they suffered from the same infirmity. She was also doubtful as to her powers of vision, so it can easily be seen that the Suburban Ironfielders had good ground for complaint against her. As to Abraham, he was a dull-looking youth, who thought of nothing but eating, and only delivered the letters because walking gave him an appetite for his meals. He never hurried himself, and at the present moment was deliberating as to whether he would then take the letters in his hand to their recipients, or let them wait until the afternoon. "Now then, Abraham," piped Mrs. Wevelspoke, viciously, "ain't you gone yet?" "You see I ain't," growled Abraham, in a fat voice.