"So 'twas, so 'twas. I reckon some folks is by nature easy forgotten, an' you'm one. If that's your character, I hope to gracious you'm goin' to keep it up. An' twenty-five pound' is a heap o' money for such a man as you." "It is," the wanderer asserted. "Ay, I feel that." At twenty minutes to five that evening, Long Oliver pulled up again by the green garden-gate. William Geake from his workshop had caught the sound of the mare's hoofs three minutes before, and awaited him. "One, two, three, four, five." The notes were counted out deliberately. Long Oliver, having been thanked, gathered up his reins and suddenly set them down again. "Dear me," said he, "if I hadn' almost forgot! I've a letter for 'ee, too." "Eh?" "Iss. A kind of a sailor-like lookin' chap came up to me i' the Half Moon yard as I was a takin' out the mare. 'Do you come from Gantick?' says he, seein' no doubt Farmer Lear's name 'pon the cart. 'There or thereabouts,' says I. 'Know Mister W. Geake?' says he. 'Well,' says I. 'Then, if you're passin', I wish you'd give 'en this here letter,' says he, an' that's all 'e said." "I wonder who 'twas," said Geake. But his face was white. "Don't know 'en by sight. Said 'e was in a great hurry for to catch the up train. Which puts me i' mind I must be movin' on. Good-night t'ye, neighbour!" As soon as he had turned the corner, Geake opened the letter. * * * * * When Naomi returned, half-an-hour later, she found him standing at the gate as if he had spent the day there: as, indeed, he might have, for all the work done to the coffin. "I must bide up to-night an' finish that job," he said, when they were indoors and she began asking how in the world he had been spending his time. "I've been worryin' mysel' all day." "It's those sermons agen," Naomi decided. "They do your head no good, an' I wish you'd give up preachin'." "Now that's just what I'm goin' to do," he answered, pushing the Bible far into the shelf till its edges knocked on the wood of the skivet-drawer. THE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA'S POST-BAG. I.--AN INTERRUPTION: _From Algernon Dexter, writer of Vers de Societe, London, to Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia_.