y don't expect
you? When a week's broken in upon, like a dollar, the rest is of no
account. And there'll be sure to be something doing, so many are going
the week after."

"We shall have letters to-night," said Susan. "But I think we must go on
Tuesday."

Everybody had letters that night. The mail was in early, and Captain
Green came up from the post-office as the Minster party was alighting
from the wagons. He gave Dakie Thayne the bag. It was Dakie's delight to
distribute, calling out the fortunate names as the expectant group
pressed around him, like people waiting the issue of a lottery venture.

"Mrs. Linceford, Miss Goldthwaite, Mrs. Linceford, Mrs. _Lince_ford!
Master--hm!--Thayne," and he pocketed a big one like a dispatch.
"Captain Jotham Green. Where is he? Here, Captain Green; you and I have
got the biggest, if Mrs. Linceford does get the most. I believe she
tells her friends to write in hits, and put one letter into three or
four envelopes. When I was a _very_ little boy, I used to get a dollar
changed into a hundred coppers, and feel ever so much richer."

"That boy's forwardness is getting insufferable!" exclaimed Mrs.
Thoresby, sitting apart, with two or three others who had not joined the
group about Dakie Thayne. "And why Captain Green should give _him_ the
bag always, I can't understand. It is growing to be a positive
nuisance."

Nobody out of the Thoresby clique thought it so. They had a merry time
together,--"you and I and the post," as Dakie said. But then, between
you and me and that confidential personage, Mrs. Thoresby and her
daughters hadn't very many letters.

"That is all," said Dakie, shaking the bag. "They're only for the very
good, to-night." He was not saucy: he was only brimming-over glad. He
knew "Noll's" square handwriting, and his big envelopes.

There was great news to-night at the Cottage. They were to have a hero,
perhaps two or three, among them. General Ingleside and friends were
coming, early in the week, the Captain told them with expansive face.
There are a great many generals and a great many heroes now. This man
had been a hero beside Sheridan, and under Sherman. Colonel Ingleside
he was at Stone River and Chattanooga,--leading a brave Western regiment
in desperate, magnificent charges, whose daring helped to turn that
terrible point of the war and made his fame.

But Leslie, though her heart stirred at the thought of a real, great
commander fresh from the field, h