Reaching the opposite side of the park there appeared before her for
the third time that little old man, the foot-post. As the turnpike-
road ran, the postman's beat was twelve miles a day; six miles out
from the town, and six miles back at night. But what with zigzags,
devious ways, offsets to country seats, curves to farms, looped
courses, and triangles to outlying hamlets, the ground actually
covered by him was nearer one-and-twenty miles. Hence it was that
Margery, who had come straight, was still abreast of him, despite her
long pause.

The weighty sense that she was mixed up in a tragical secret with an
unknown and handsome stranger prevented her joining very readily in
chat with the postman for some time. But a keen interest in her
adventure caused her to respond at once when the bowed man of mails
said, 'You hit athwart the grounds of Mount Lodge, Miss Margery, or
you wouldn't ha' met me here. Well, somebody hey took the old place
at last.'

In acknowledging her route Margery brought herself to ask who the new
gentleman might be.

'Guide the girl's heart! What! don't she know? And yet how should
ye--he's only just a-come.--Well, nominal, he's a fishing gentleman,
come for the summer only. But, more to the subject, he's a foreign
noble that's lived in England so long as to be without any true
country: some of his letters call him Baron, some Squire, so that 'a
must be born to something that can't be earned by elbow-grease and
Christian conduct. He was out this morning a-watching the fog.
"Postman," 'a said, "good-morning: give me the bag." O, yes, 'a's a