"Did you ever hear a feebler or a more idiotic sermon?" demanded Mrs Polsue of Miss Oliver on their way home down the valley. "If ever a man had his chance to improve an occasion--" "Tut! I say nothing of his incapacity. There are some men that can't rise even when 'tis a question of all Europe at war. But did you hear the light he made, or tried to make, of Sabbath-breaking?" "I didn't hear all that," Miss Oliver confessed: "or not to notice. It seemed so funny his getting up at that hour and dangling his legs on a wall." "We will press to have a married man planned to us next time," said Mrs Polsue. "A wife wouldn't allow it." "Do you suppose he _smoked?_" asked Miss Oliver. "I shouldn't wonder. . . . He certainly does it at home, for I took the trouble to smell his window-curtains; and at an hour like that, with nobody about--" "There's an All-seeing Eye, however early you choose to dangle your legs," said Miss Oliver. CHAPTER V. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER. Just about seven o'clock next morning Nicky-Nan, who had breakfasted early and taken post early in the porchway to watch against any possible _ruse_ of the foe--for, Bank Holiday or no Bank Holiday, he was taking no risks--spied Lippity-Libby the postman coming over the bridge towards him with his dot-and-go-one gait. Lippity-Libby, drawing near, held out a letter in his hand and flourished it. "Now don't excite yourself," he warned Nicky-Nan. "When first I seed your name 'pon the address I said to myself 'What a good job if that poor fella's luck should be here at last, and this a fortun' arrived from his rich relatives in Canada!' That's the very words I said to myself." "As it happens, I han't got no rich relatives, neither here nor in Canada," answered Nicky-Nan. "Is that letter for me? Or are you playin' me some trick?"