would know all about the newcomers, Mary reflected with
satisfaction. One of her pleasures of coming back was meeting her old
friend, the postmaster, and at the thought of him she walked a little
faster. Captain Doane had held the office ever since Lone-Rock had been
a mail station, and in a way was a sort of father confessor to everybody
in the place. A clean-shaven jolly old face with deep laughter wrinkles
about the blue eyes, which twinkled through steel-bowed spectacles,
bushy iron-gray hair and bristling eyebrows--that was about all one saw
through the bars of the narrow delivery window. But so much kindly
sympathy and neighborly interest and good advice and real concern were
handed out with the daily mail, that every man in the community regarded
him as his personal friend.

There were only two mail trains a day in Lone-Rock, and at this hour
Mary was sure of finding him at leisure. Seeing him through the open
window, sound asleep in his arm-chair over an open newspaper, with his
spectacles slipping down his nose, Mary was about to spring in the door
with a playful "boo." But she remembered her wish on the hay-wagon and
the necessity of waiting for him to speak first. So she only rattled the
latch. He started up, a little bewildered from his sudden awakening, but
seeing who had come, dashed off the old slouch hat, perched on the back
of his head.

"Well, bless my soul!" he cried heartily, coming forward with an
outstretched hand. "If it isn't our little Mary Ware! I heard you were
back and I've been looking all afternoon for you to drop in. Have you
come back to stay, this time?"

There was an instant of hesitation, as she considered how she could
reply to such a question honestly with a yes. Then she stammered,
"Y-yes, for a little while. That is, just for a few weeks." Then she
drew a long breath. "My! That was a narrow escape. I've been wondering
all the way up the street what would be the first thing you'd say to me,
and for a second I was afraid you'd ruined my chances."

Her laugh rang out merrily at his bewildered exclamation. "The chances
for my wish coming true," she explained. "I made one on a hay-wagon,
coming along, about this letter."

"Sit down and give an account of yourself," he insisted, and as she had
come for a visit she willingly obeyed. But she would not take his chair
at the desk as he urged, climbing instead to the only other seat which
the office afforded. It was a high stool beside t