Bullhampton unfortunately was at the end of the postman’s walk, and as the man came all the way from Lavington, letters were seldom received much before eleven o’clock. Now this was a most pernicious arrangement, in respect to which Mr. Fenwick carried on a perpetual feud¹ with the Post-office authorities, having put forward a great postal² doctrine³ that letters ought to be rained from heaven on to everybody’s breakfast-table exactly as the hot water is brought in for tea. He, being an energetic man, carried on a long and angry correspondence with the authorities aforesaid; but the old man from Lavington continued to toddle⁴ into the village just at eleven o’clock. It was acknowledged that ten was his time; but, as he argued with himself, ten and eleven were pretty much of a muchness. The consequence of this was, that Mary Lowther’s letters to Mrs. Fenwick had been read by her two or three hours before she had an opportunity of speaking on the subject to her husband. At last, however, he returned, and she flew at him with the letter in her hand. “Frank,” she said, “Frank, what do you think has happened?”

“The Bank of England must have stopped, from the look of your face.”

“I wish it had, with all my heart, sooner than this. Mary has gone and engaged herself to her cousin, Walter Marrable.”

“Mary Lowther!”

“Yes; Mary Lowther! Our Mary! And from what I remember hearing about him, he is anything but nice.”

“He had a lot of money left to him the other day.”

“It can’t have been much, because Mary owns that they will be very poor. Here is her letter. I am so unhappy about it. Don’t you remember hearing about that Colonel Marrable who was in a horrible scrape about somebody’s wife?”

“You shouldn’t judge the son from the father.”

“They’ve been in the army together, and they’re both alike. I hate the army. They are almost always no better than they should be.”

“That’s true, my dear, certainly of all services, unless it be the army of martyrs⁵; and there may be a doubt on the subject even as to them. May I read it?”

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