Lamb."
He had some pleasant sense of liking to be ordered about by this young
woman. As they faced the snow, he asked, "How tall are you, Leila?"
"Five feet ten inches and--to be accurate--a quarter. Why do you ask?"
"Idle curiosity."
"Curiosity is never idle, Mr. Rivers. It is industrious. I proved that in
a composition I wrote at school. It did bother Miss Mayo."
"I should think it might," said Rivers. "Any letters, Mrs. Crocker?"
"No, sir; none for Squire's folk. Two newspapers. Awful cold, Miss Leila.
Molasses so hard to-day, had to be chopped--"
"Oh, now, Mrs. Crocker!"
The fat post-mistress was still handling the pile of finger-soiled
letters. "Oh, there's one for Mrs. Lamb."
"We are going there. I'll take it."
"Thanks, miss. She's right constant in coming for letters, but the
letters they don't come, and now here's one at last." Leila tucked it
into her belt. "I tell you, Miss Leila, a post-office is a place to make
you laugh one day and cry the next. When you see a girl from the country
come here twice a week for maybe two months and then go away trying that
hard to make believe it wasn't of any account. There ought to be some one
to write 'em letters--just to say, 'Don't cry, he'll come.' It might be a
queer letter."
Rivers wondered at the very abrupt and very American introduction of
unexpected sentiment and humour.
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