ial disposition, was the sole connecting link
between the cottage and the neighborhood around it. But this day seemed
to be an exception.

While yet the little party lingered at the breakfast-table, Edith looked
up, and saw the tall, thin figure of a woman in a nankeen riding-shirt,
and a nankeen corded sun-bonnet, in the act of dismounting from her
great, raw-boned white horse,

"If there isn't Miss Nancy Skamp!" exclaimed Edith, in no very
hospitable tone--"and I wonder how she can leave the post-office."

"Oh! this is not mail day!" replied Marian, laughing, "notwithstanding
which we shall have news enough." And Marian who, for her part, was
really glad to see the old lady, arose to meet and welcome her.

Miss Nancy was little changed; the small, tall, thin, narrow-chested,
stooping figure--the same long, fair, freckled, sharp set face--the
same prim cap, and clean, scant, faded gown, or one of the same
sort--made up her personal individuality. Miss Nancy now had charge of
the village post-office; and her early and accurate information
respecting all neighborhood affairs, was obtained, it was whispered, by
an official breach of trust; if so, however, no creature except Miss
Nancy, her black boy, and her white cat, knew it. She was a great news
carrier, it is true, yet she was not especially addicted to scandal. To
her, news was news, whether good or bad, and so she took almost as much
pleasure in exciting the wonder of her listeners by recounting the good
action or good fortune of her neighbors or the reverse.

And so, after having dropped her riding-skirt, and given that and her
bonnet to Marian to carry up-stairs, and seated herself in the chair
that Edith offered her at the table, she said, sipping her coffee, and
glancing between the white curtains and the green vines of the open
window out upon the bay:

"You have the sweetest place, and the finest sea view here, my dear Mrs.
Shields; but that is not what I was a-going to say. I was going to tell
you that I hadn't hearn from you so long, that I thought I must take an
early ride this morning, and spend the day with you. And I thought you'd
like to hear about your old partner at the dancing-school, young Mr.
Thurston Willcoxen, a-coming back--la, yes! to be sure! we had almost
all of us forgotten him, leastwise I had. And then, Miss Marian," she
said, as our blooming girl returned to her place at the table, "I just
thought I would bring over that muslin for