"Let 's see..." said the Spawer, skimming the postcard more rapidly than Miss Bates had done before him. "Is he waiting?"
"It 's not a 'e," Miss Bates replied, with no manifest relish of the fact. "An' she 's stood at kitchen door. 'Appen she 's waitin' to be asked twice to come in an' sit 'ersen down—bud she 'll 'ave to wait. Once is good enough for most folk, an' it mun do for 'er."
The Spawer finished the post-card, tossing it on the table, and forced his fingers beneath the flap of the next envelope.
"What?" said he, with a smile of amused surprise. "Is the postman a lady, then?"
"Nay," repudiated Miss Bates, stripping the amusement off his surprise, and treating the question in grim earnest. "She 'd onnly like to be. It 'd suit 'er a deal better nor tramplin' about roads wi' a brown bag ower 'er back."
"It sounds charming enough," said the Spawer, throwing himself with a diabolical heartiness into the idea. "What sort of a postman is she?"
"No different fro' nobody else," Miss Bates gives grudgingly, "though she 's 'ods [holds] 'er chin where most folk's noses is. They gie 'er six shillin' a week for carryin' letters to Cliff Wrangham an' Far Wrangham an' round by Shippus—an' it mud be ten bi t' way she sets up."
"Six shillings a week," the Spawer mused wonderingly. "Just a shilling a day and be a good girl for nothing on Sunday. She 'll need all the pride she can muster to help her through on that."
"There 's twenty for t' job onny day she teks into 'er 'ead to leave it," Miss Bates reflected, with callous indifference. "She's n' occasion to keep it agen [unless] she likes."
The Spawer put down the first letter and opened the second. It was a bill. "There 'll be no answer to this," he said grimly, and passed on to the third. He gave one glance at the green Helvetian stamps under the Luzern post-marks, and toyed with it irresolutely unopened. "I don't think the post need wait," he said, this time casting the office considerately into the neuter gender.