The postman was getting nearer now, she could tell, and he had not whistled again. He had known for many a year now that he did not need to whistle more than once when it came to Mrs. Kirkby!... Like a wise man, he was saving his breath for the last steep little pull that led to the gardens. She could hear him wheezing and puffing, as it was, and the shuffle of his step which betrayed the slow lifting of his feet. Dick Nelson was getting old, she thought idly, and then remembered with a start that he was the same age as herself. She knew that was so because he had told her his age on his last birthday, and, looking at his wrinkles and his bowed back, she had been startled, even then. To-day, listening to his puffing and pausing as he climbed the gardens path, she was more than startled. To-day, faced as she was with new conditions which would make such trial of her strength, Dick’s loss of vigour seemed an actual menace. She tried to console herself with the thought that age was purely a personal matter, and that people did not necessarily grow old at the same rate because they were born on the same day. Dick, as she knew, had been a weakling in his youth, whereas she had never known ache or pain. A walking-post’s job was a trying one, too, especially in this northern climate.... Nevertheless, she found it an effort to look at him as he came in at the little gate. He was still wheezing as he stopped in front of her, and, diving into his bag, produced a flat packet, which she saw to be addressed to her in Ellen’s writing. He fumbled a little with it before he handed it over, and for the moment, curiously enough, she felt no impulse to take it from him. “Another letter from your folks, Missis,” Dick said, with the familiarity of the old country postman, which pays for itself by a genuine sympathy in either joy or sorrow. “It should ha’ been here yesterday, but I took it to Mrs. Crosby’s, by mistake.” Mattie looked rather vexed at that, both because she did not like Mrs. Crosby, and because she was unaccountably troubled by the sudden appearance of the packet. “I should think it _was_ a mistake!” she answered him rather sharply, though at the same time trying to tone down her reproof for the sake of old acquaintance. “There’s not much likeness between Kirkby and Crosby that I can see!” “Nay, nor between the folks, neither!” Dick chuckled, setting her flushing again, though now it was from flattered vanity instead of anger. Mrs. Crosby was a thin little rat of a woman, with a red head and a blue nose,--about as different a person from Mattie as you could find in a day’s march.... Dick might be stupid and short of breath, she reflected, softening, but he still knew a fine woman when he came across one.