quite an every-day occurrence for
us to be travelling up together in the night mail to Euston-square
station. I blamed myself for an idiot that I had not sooner made an
opportunity for visiting my unknown friends at Eaton.

"Then," I said, putting down the letter-bill from their own office before
her, "may I ask which of the signatures I know so well, is yours? Is it
A. Clifton, or M. Clifton, or S. Clifton?" She hesitated a little, and
blushed, and lifted up her frank childlike eyes to mine.

"I am A. Clifton," she answered.

"And your name?" I said.

"Anne;" then, as if anxious to give some explanation to me of her present
position, she added, "I was going up to London on a visit, and I thought
it would be so nice to travel in the post-office to see how the work was
done, and Mr. Huntingdon came to survey our office, and he said he would
send me an order."

I felt somewhat surprised, for a stricter martinet than Mr. Huntingdon
did not breathe; but I glanced down at the small innocent face at my
side, and cordially approved of his departure from ordinary rules.

"Did you know you would travel with me?" I asked, in a lower voice; for
Tom Morville, my junior, was at my other elbow.

"I knew I should travel with Mr. Wilcox," she answered, with a smile that
made all my nerves tingle.

"You have not written me a word for ages," said I, reproachfully.

"You had better not talk, or you'll be making mistakes," she replied, in
an arch tone. It was quite true; for, a sudden confusion coming over me,
I was sorting the letters at random.

We were just then approaching the small station where the letter-bag from
the great house was taken up. The engine was slackening speed. Miss
Clifton manifested some natural and becoming diffidence.

"It would look so odd," she said, "to any one on the platform, to see a
girl in the post-office van! And they couldn't know I was a postmaster's
daughter, and had an order from Mr. Huntingdon. Is there no dark corner
to shelter me?"

I must explain to you in a word or two the construction of the van, which
was much less efficiently fitted up than the travelling post-offices of
the present day. It was a reversible van, with a door at each right-hand
corner. At each door the letter-boxes were so arranged as to form a kind
of screen about two feet in width, which prevented people from seeing all
over the carriage at once. Thus the door at the far end of the van, the
one not in u