But post masters are made confidants in graver matters than these. They are not unfrequently called upon by deserted wives to look up their truant husbands, and by desolate husbands to aid them in recovering frail partners, who have been unfaithful to their marriage vows, and have forsaken the "guides of their youth." Letters of this description are principally from the more illiterate class of community; yet amid the crooked chirography and bad spelling, there sparkles so much tender affection, sometimes for the guilty one, sometimes for the innocent children, who are suffering from the unprincipled conduct of a parent, that these cases command the warmest sympathy of those whose aid is invoked, although the requests thus made relate to matters entirely out of their sphere, and consequently they are seldom able to afford much assistance to the parties in trouble. I will here give an extract from this class of letters, as illustrating the above remarks. The following is from a letter received by the post master of a city in Ohio, from a woman who had been deserted by her husband five years previous. She requested the post master to read it to her husband, in case he should find him, so it is written _at_ the latter person. In the postscript, (which is generally supposed to contain the pith of female correspondence,) she says,-- "You would shed tears If you onley could see wat a smart peart little boy you have hear what a sham It Is to think that A sensable man should leave a wife and a child that Is got as much sense as he has--and people say he is as much like you as he can be he has got the pretys black eyes I have ever seen In any ones head he has an eye like a hawk." Thus is the _argumentum ad hominem_ supplied by woman's instinct. Fatherly pride was called upon to effect that to which conjugal affection was inadequate. CHAPTER XXVII. A Windfall for Gossipers--Suit for Slander--Profit and Loss--The Resuscitated Letter--Condemned Mail Bag--An Epistolary Rip Van Winkle. In country villages, where few events happen to interrupt the monotony of every day life, the occurrence of an out-of-the-way incident is like seed sown in a fertile soil, producing a fruitful crop of speculations and surmises, and affording food for conversation for many a day to the eager gossip-hunters who abound in such small places. About thirty years ago, the quiet town of Lebanon, in the State of Connecticut, was enlivened by one of these occurrences, which brought a new influx of curiosity-mongers to the blacksmith's shop; covered all the barrels, boxes, and counters in the store with eager disputants, and gave new life to the Sewing Society, and its auxiliary "tea-fights." The cause of this unwonted moving of the waters, was on this wise: