She walked slowly out through the open window. She wore an evening dress of rusty black velvet with a long train. It gave her a very imposing appearance, and the effect of her evening dress and her handsome face and imperious manners were so overpowering that the old postman, as he hobbled toward her, had to mutter under his breath:
"Don't forget your game leg, Benjafield, nor your wall eye, and don't you be tooken down nor beholden to nobody."
"Why is the post so late?" inquired Mrs. Bertram. "It is more than half-past eight."
"Eh!" exclaimed Benjafleld.
"I asked why the post was so late."
"Eh? I'm hard of hearing, your ladyship."
He came a little nearer, and leered up in the most familiar way into the aristocratic face of Mrs. Bertram.
"Intolerable old man," she muttered, aloud: "Take the letters from him, Catherine, and bring them here."
Then raising her voice to a thin scream, she continued:
"I shall write to the general post-office on this subject; it is quite intolerable that in any part of England Her Majesty's Post should be entrusted to incapable hands."