They were handed over to the care of a polite and intelligent letter-sorter named Bright. The sorter seemed fully to appreciate and enter into Miss Lillycrop's spirit of inquiry. He led her and May to the inside--the throat, as it were--of those postal jaws, the exterior aspect of which we have already described. On the way thither they had to pass through part of the great letter-sorting hall. It seemed to Miss Lillycrop's excited imagination as if she had been suddenly plunged over head and ears into a very ocean of letters. From that moment onwards, during her two hours' visit, she swam, as it were, among snowy billows of literature. "This is the receiving-box--the inside of it," said Mr Bright, as he led the way through a glass door into a species of closet or compartment about six feet by ten in dimension, or thereabouts, with a low roof. "This way ladies. Stand here on one side. They are just going to open it." The visitors saw in front of them a recess, divided by a partition, in which were two large baskets. A few letters were falling into these as they entered. Glancing upwards, they saw a long slit, through which a number of curious human eyes peeped for a moment, and disappeared, to be replaced by other eyes. Little spurts of letters came intermittently through the slit and fell into the baskets. These, when full, were seized by two attendants, dragged away, and replaced by empty ones. Suddenly the upper lip of the slit, or postal mouth, rose. "Oh, May, look!" exclaimed Miss Lillycrop eagerly. Not only the eyes but the heads and shoulders of the moving public now became visible to those inside, while the intermittent spurts became gradually a continuous shower of letters. The full significance of the old superscription, "Haste, post haste, for thy life," now began to dawn on Miss Lillycrop. The hurry, mentioned elsewhere in our description of the outside view, increased as the minutes of grace flew by, and the visitors fairly laughed aloud when they saw the cataract of correspondence--the absolute waterfall, with, now and then, a bag or an entire bandboxful of letters, like a loosened boulder--that tumbled into the baskets below. From this letter-fall Miss Lillycrop was led, speechless, by her cicerone, followed by May, to whom the scene was not quite new, and whose chief enjoyment of it consisted in observing her interested and excitable friend's surprise. Mr Bright led them back to the great sorting-room, where the energetic labour of hundreds of men and boys--facing, carrying, stamping, distributing, sorting, etcetera--was going on full swing. Everywhere there was rapid work, but no hurry; busy and varied action, but no confusion; a hum of mingled voice and footfall, but no unnecessary noise. It was a splendid example of the power of orderly and united action. To Miss Lillycrop it conveyed the idea of hopeless and irretrievable confusion!