and Counties, which we will call
Fazeley. My duties were to accompany the mail-train which left Fazeley
at 8.15 P.M., and arrived in London about midnight, and to return by the
day mail leaving London at 10.30 the following morning, after which I had
an unbroken night at Fazeley, while another clerk discharged the same
round of work; and in this way each alternative evening I was on duty in
the railway post-office van. At first I suffered a little from a hurry
and tremor of nerve in pursuing my occupation while the train was
crashing along under bridges and through tunnels at a speed which was
then thought marvellous and perilous; but it was not long before my hands
and eyes became accustomed to the motion of the carriage, and I could go
through my business with the same despatch and ease as in the post-office
of the country town where I had learned it, and from which I had been
promoted by the influence of the surveyor of the district, Mr.
Huntingdon. In fact, the work soon fell into a monotonous routine,
which, night after night, was pursued in an unbroken course by myself and
the junior clerk, who was my only assistant: the railway post-office work
not having then attained the importance and magnitude it now possesses.

Our route lay through an agricultural district containing many small
towns, which made up two or three bags only; one for London; another
perhaps for the county town; a third for the railway post-office, to be
opened by us, and the enclosures to be distributed according to their
various addresses. The clerks in many of these small offices were women,
as is very generally the case still, being the daughters and female
relatives of the nominal postmaster, who transact most of the business of
the office, and whose names are most frequently signed upon the bills
accompanying the bags. I was a young man, and somewhat more curious in
feminine handwriting than I am now. There was one family in particular,
whom I had never seen, but with whose signatures I was perfectly
familiar--clear, delicate, and educated, very unlike the miserable scrawl
upon other letter-bills. One New Year's-eve, in a moment of sentiment, I
tied a slip of paper among a bundle of letters for their office, upon
which I had written, "A happy New Year to you all." The next evening
brought me a return of my good wishes, signed, as I guessed, by three
sisters of the name of Clifton. From that day, every now and then, a
sentence or tw