That was what Rue did not mean to tell. She chose her prettiest Bible, spent the play-hours of two days in writing an epistle on the fly-leaves, and tied it up in a piece of brown paper. Her knowledge of the post-office and its requirements was exceedingly limited, but she supposed it would be necessary to put something on the outside of the packet, to tell for whom it was intended. She wanted it to go where it was needed most, and of course the post-office people would know where that was, she reflected; so she carefully printed, in very uneven letters, “For the greatest heathen,” and then laid the precious package away to await a future opportunity. She would trust her secret to no one, lest some unforeseen interference might result, and she cautiously sought information. “How do you do when you put anything into the post-office?” she demanded of Mary Jane Sullivan. “Why, you just put ’em in. You go in the door, and there’s an open place where you drop ’em right down,” exclaimed Mary Jane, lucidly. How good Rue was for days after that. How she washed dishes in the kitchen, under the care of Miss Dorothy, and made beds in the dormitories, under the supervision of Mrs. Mehitable, and so at last earned the privilege of being the one sent to town on some trifling errand for the matron. Thus it happened that one bright morning the clerks in the post-office were surprised by a little packet tossed in upon the floor, and a glimpse of a blue check apron vanishing hurriedly through the door. Unstamped, and with its odd address, it created a ripple of amusement. “‘For the greatest heathen.’ That must be you, Captain,” declared one; and the postmaster laughingly took charge of it, and then forgot it until, at home that evening, he found it in his pocket. [Illustration: Rue writing the letter to “The Greatest Heathen.”] “What is it?” asked his wife, presently, as she saw him silent and absorbed, and, looking over his shoulder, she read the little letter with him. Original in spelling and peculiar in chirography it certainly was, but they slowly deciphered it: