POPPEA OF THE POST-OFFICE

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
(BARBARA)

AUTHOR OF "THE GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE," "PEOPLE OF THE WHIRLPOOL," "THE OPEN WINDOW," ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE
BY THE KINNEYS

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
All rights reserved

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO

Copyright, 1909,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909. Reprinted
July, 1909.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To
E. C. S.
IN REMEMBRANCE

Poppea glanced wistfully across the room and then slipped out through one of the long windows

CONTENTS

POPPEA OF THE POST-OFFICE

CHAPTER I

THE TENTH OF MARCH

The six-thirty New York mail was late. So late that when the tall clock that faced the line of letter-boxes boomed eight, the usual hour for closing, Oliver Gilbert, the postmaster, ceased his halting tramp up and down the narrow length of the office, head and ears thrown forward in the attitude of a listening hunting-dog. Going to the door, he pulled it back with a nervous jerk and peered into the night.

As he did so, he was followed by a dozen men of various ages and social conditions, who, in waiting for the evening mail, the final social event of their day, had been standing about the stove, or, this choice space being limited, overflowed into the open room at the back of the post-office, with its work bench, chairs, and battered desk, topped by book shelves; for, in addition to his official position, the postmaster was a maker and mender of clocks and the Scribe for all those in the village of Harley's Mills who could not safely navigate the