The morning mail for Merrivale had just arrived, and the postmaster was distributing the letters. Col. Rossiter, who lived in the large stone house on the Knoll, had two; one from his wife, who, with his two daughters, was spending the summer at Martha's Vineyard, and one from his son Philip, a young graduate from Harvard, who had been off on a yachting excursion, and was coming home for a few days before joining his mother and sisters at the sea-side. There was also one for Mrs. Lydia Ann Ferguson, who lived on Cottage Row, and was the fashionable dressmaker of the town. Mr. Arthur Beresford, the only practicing lawyer in Merrivale, had six, five of which he read hastily, as he stood in the post-office door, and then for a moment studied the superscription of the other, which was soiled and travel-worn, and bore a foreign postmark...FROM THE BOOKS.
