Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

Latimer wore the look of having himself walked in the beyond at day dawn, and rough 'Lisha, no less than Jeanne, was struck by the illumination of his face.

At 'Lisha's whispered surmises concerning the contents of the trunk, he showed no surprise, but the rapt intensity that surrounded him increased.

"Take it to my study," was all he said; and when Jeanne came in a few minutes later, attracted by the sound of voices, 'Lisha had gone, and her husband sat looking at the object on the floor, his hands clasped as though he prayed.

He read the question in her face, all the more beautiful to him that the love and care of others had left their life-lines on the cheeks that were once as round and dimpled as a baby's. Telling the bare facts, he added: "Something was struggling to make known that this was coming, for all last night the face of the new-born babe I christened was Poppea's and the other face that of her mother. The day will come, Jeanne, when there will no longer be anything unnatural about the happenings that we call visions and miracles, because the knowledge will have come to us to understand them."

Then after breakfasting together in the sweet spring morning, in quiet confidence, only separated in degree from the other couple who ate at the post-office house before the dawn, Stephen Latimer lay down to take some open-eyed rest before examining the trunk. When he began the work, he cautioned Jeanne to refuse him absolutely to all callers. Then, provided with blotters, a thin paper-knife, and warm irons, he spread a sheet upon the study floor and raised the water-soaked lid.

All through the morning he worked, separating and drying. At noon, when Jeanne opened the door, he did not turn his head, and setting the tray of luncheon where he could see it, she closed the door again without speaking. When supper-time came and she again entered, the papers were arranged upon his desk in tidy piles, and he was reading. He stretched his hand out for the cup of tea she held and still kept at his task.

It was after eight o'clock when he called her, and white and exhausted as he looked, she saw at once that he had reached some definite conclusion. Begging him to take at least a bowl of soup, he assented, and then drew her to him on the seat before the open window. Holding her hand as if the tender grasp of it would focus and harmonize his thoughts, he sat a moment silent, as though he had lost the gift of words.

"Was Poppea's secret hid among those papers?" Jeanne finally asked, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer. "And if it was, do tell me quickly and simply who she is, and then the why of it after. You don't realize, Stevie, what the strain of this long day has been upon a woman."

"It can be told quickly, but for the rest it's not a simple matter," replied Stephen, trying with his tired brain to sort his ideas and put them in sequence. "The papers in this trunk are various family letters, the certificate of Poppea's birth and baptism and some of her mother's diaries—"

"Yes, yes! but who was her mother?" cried Jeanne, the uncontrollable impetuosity of youth returning to her, so that she rose to a kneeling position on the window-seat and almost shook her husband, so vigorously did she grasp his shoulder.