"Why, is it late? Did I sleep too awfully long? Why didn't you call me?"
"Oh, my dear, why? It's barely nine, and that isn't late at all for a girl who spent all yesterday on the train. I let you sleep on purpose. What's the use of waking up before the mail comes? And that isn't in till half-past under the most favorable circumstances; and even then it never is distributed until quarter to ten. I thought we'd get our letters after our breakfast, and then carry them across the bridge with us. Would you like to do that? I have to cross the bridge every morning."
"Cross the bridge? That means to go to your house?"
"Yes, dear."
"How nice! I'm crazy to see your house. Is it far from here to the post-office? Will that be on our way?"
"That is the post-office there—by the trees." Alva pointed to a brown, two-story, cottage-like structure three hundred yards further up the track.
"The little house with the box nailed to the gate-post?"
"It isn't such a little house, Lassie; it's quite a mansion. The lady who lives in it rents the upper part for a flat and takes boarders down-stairs."
"Does she take many?"
Alva laughed. "She told me that she only had a double-bed and a half-bed, so she was limited to eight."