bout such words, and it's a
revelation to me wherever you managed to pick them up."

Dinah smoothed her apron. "I can't think neither," she confessed, and
added demurely, "It could never have been from the old master, for I'm
sure he'd never have used such."

Mrs Bosenna wheeled about, her face aflame. But before she could turn
on Dinah to rend her, the sound of a horn floated up from the valley.
Dinah's whole body stiffened at once. "The post!" she cried, and ran
forth from the kitchen to meet it, without asking leave. Letters at
Rilla Farm were rare exceedingly, for Mrs Bosenna made a point of paying
ready-money (and exacting the last penny of discount) wherever it was
possible; so that bills, even in the shape of invoices, were few.
She had no relatives, or none whom she encouraged as correspondents,
for, as the saying is, "she had married above her." For the same
reason, perhaps, she had long since stopped the flow of sentimental
letters from the girl-friends she had once possessed in Holsworthy,
Devon. If Mrs Bosenna now and again found herself lonely at Rilla Farm
in her widowhood, it is to be feared the majority of her old
acquaintances would have agreed in asserting, with a touch of satisfied
spite, that she had herself to blame,--and welcome!

"There's _two!_" announced Dinah, bursting back into the kitchen and
waving her capture. "_Two!_--and the Troy postmark on both of 'em!"

"Put them down on the table, please. And kindly take a look at the
oven. You needn't let the bread burn, even if I _am_ to take breakfast in
the kitchen."

"But ain't you in a hurry to open them, mistress?" asked Dinah,
pretending to go, still hanging on her heel.

"Maybe I am; maybe I ain't." Mrs Bosenna picked up the two envelopes
with a carelessness which was slightly overdone. They were sealed, the
pair of them. She broke the seal of the first carefully, drew out the
letter, and read--

"HONOURED MADAM,--You will doubtless be surprised--"

She turned to the last page and read the subscription--

"Yours obediently,"

"TOBIAS HUNKEN."

"Who's it from, mistress?" asked Dinah, making pretence of a difficulty
with the oven door.

"Nobody that concerns you," snapped Mrs Bosenna, and hastily stowed the
letter in the bosom of her bodice. She picked up the other. Of that,
in turn, she broke the seal--

"HONOURED MADAM,--"

The handwriting was somewhat superior.

"HONOURED MADAM,--You wi