Mrs. Simmons was commonplace enough, being of no particular age, and having no particular features; but she was not, for all that, without her own individuality. "Legion!" reiterated Mr. Carden-Cox. "How would you like to have all these to answer?" He lifted the pile as he spoke, weighing it in both hands, with a deprecating and mournful smile. He would by no means have liked not "to have all these to answer"; but none the less, he pitied himself. Mrs. Simmons smoothed down a corner of the tablecloth, which had "got rucked up," as she expressed it. "I'm sure I don't know how ever I should get through 'em, sir, what with the dusting and cooking," she said. "Cooking! Ah!—" Mr. Carden-Cox answered with mild benignity. He knew enough about cooking to believe that a joint would "do" itself, if left before the fire, and that a pudding could be tossed together in five minutes. It seemed absurd to think that dusting or cooking could hinder correspondence, though he would not hurt Mrs. Simmons's feelings by suggesting that she over-estimated her vocation. "Ah!—" he repeated. "Yes. No doubt. But the Penny Post is a great burden, a great burden. You and I can hardly be thankful enough that in our young days no Penny Post existed. We were spared that trouble." Mrs. Simmons might be of no particular age, but she was not so old as Mr. Carden-Cox; and naturally she resented being placed on his level. "Indeed, sir, I don't pretend to be able to go back to them days," she said with emphasis. "And I don't say but what the Penny Post has got its good points; not but what it's got its bad points too. As my father was used to say; for he did live in the times when there wasn't none." "Everything in life has its advantages and its disadvantages," Mr. Carden-Cox said, looking at her with his bright eyes, as he weighed the postal delivery still. "The question in any particular case is—which overbalances the other? Do the advantages more than compensate for the disadvantages, or vice versa? You perceive? Sometimes there seems to be a complete balance of forces—an equilibrium—the scale will not incline either way." "No, sir," assented Mrs. Simmons, anxious to escape before she should find herself in a mental quagmire. "Nothing then remains but to hold one's opinion in abeyance, till one side or the other sinks. You understand?" "To be sure, sir!" Mrs. Simmons answered, with a heartiness which might almost have meant comprehension. "Poor gentleman!" she was saying to herself. "No, he isn't quite all right there; but I've got to humour him." "You are a sensible woman; a very sensible woman, Mrs. Simmons," Mr. Carden-Cox stated approvingly. "It is a relief to find one of your sex who can listen to logic, without argumentative opposition." Mrs. Simmons liked this. "My mother was a sensible woman, sir," she averred, delaying her flight.