! What shall I do? Help!"

To which the learned doctor gave the matter-of-fact but inelegant
reply:--

"Stick your feet in hot water. Go to bed at once. Prescription sent by
post. Take it every hour."

But May Maylands did not stick her feet in hot water; neither did she go
to bed, or take any physic. Indeed there was no occasion to do so, for
a clear complexion and pink cheeks told of robust health.

On another occasion she asked an Irish farmer if he could send her
twenty casks of finest butter to cost not more than 6 pence per pound.

To which the farmer was rude enough to answer--"Not by no manner of
means."

In short May's conduct was such that we must hasten to free her from
premature condemnation by explaining that she was a female telegraphist
in what we may call the literary lungs of London--the General
Post-Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand.

On that chill December afternoon, during a brief lull in her portion of
the telegraphic communication of the kingdom, May leaned her little head
on her hand, and sent her mind to the little cottage by the sea, already
described as lying on the west coast of Ireland, with greater speed than
ever she flashed those electric sparks which it was her business to
scatter broadcast over the land. The hamlet, near which the cottage
stood, nestled under the shelter of a cliff as if in expectation and
dread of being riven from its foundations by the howling winds, or
whelmed in the surging waves. The cottage itself was on the outskirts
of the hamlet, farther to the south. The mind of May entered through
its closed door,--for mind, like electricity, laughs at bolts and bars.

There was a buzz of subdued sound from more than twelve hundred
telegraphists, male and female, in that mighty telegraph-hall of Saint
Martin's-le-Grand, but May heard it not. Dozens upon dozens of tables,
each with its busy occupants--tables to right of her, tables to left of
her, tables in rear of her, tables in front of her,--swept away from her
in bewildering perspective, but May saw them not. The clicking of six
or seven hundred instruments broke upon her ear as they flashed the news
of the world over the length and breadth of the land, pulsating joy and
sorrow, surprise, fear, hope, despair, and gladness to thousands of
anxious hearts, but May regarded it not. She heard only the booming of
the great sea, and saw her mother seated by the fire darning socks, with
Madge engaged in household