Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

As she leaned toward the child, who was clutching at her long pearl earrings, shaped like bunches of grapes, seeming to regard her as a new and improved species of doll, Gilbert's hand closed on Miss Emmy's arm with a grip that was by no means gentle.

"Hush!" he said almost roughly in her ear, "we don't speak about her being deserted and talk of that sort any more. None can tell when she will begin to understand. As for her being adopted by you or any one else, that's not to be. She was not left on Quality Hill; no lights were there that stormy night; there were no folks awake! She was as good as born to me. There's just three of us in this, God and her and me, and we've got to work it out between us, stand or fall."

"I could do so much more for her," Miss Emmy murmured apologetically; then stopped, checked by the expression of his face, though she did not understand it.

"Yes, ma'am, you could and would as far as boughten things would carry, but I've held Marygold in my arms, her little fingers clasped around my neck, so I know, and time out of mind it's come to me that with women folks and children the knowing and feeling sure is more than the having."

"Miss Emmy, what is a parrotpet?" Satira Pegrim had been on pins and needles during this interview, and in seeking to cut it short, jerked out a sentence quite as irrelevant as those two that have become famous,—"There's milestones on the Dover road," and "Barneses goose was stole by tinkers."

"A paroquet is a bird, a small parrot. Don't you remember that I kept a pair until one died and the other one grew moody and bit Willy—I mean Mr. Esterbrook?" said Miss Emmy, also glad of the break in a strained situation.

"No, it isn't a bird, it's something to do with bricks. They've been carting them from sloops in Westboro Harbor up to John Angus's place this week past, and this morning, when I was raking up the leaves in the garden down beyond the apple trees, making ready to sow early radishes and lettuce, I climbed up the bank to Angus's boundary to take a look, and if the old fence wasn't gone! Half a dozen men were filling out the bank even with dirt from what was the old flower garden; the old shrubs was uptore and lying roots in air, and right at the end of what was the long path was a mountain of bricks.

"Peter Nichols, the overseer, was there, so I called out and asked him what became of the fence and said I wished I could have had some of the piney roots and garden stuff that was just tossed out for filling. He says, 'There's going to be a fine brick parrotpet instead of the fence, 'cause this here's to be a rose garden, and as for the posy roots and things, I daresn't give 'em, but later on I reckon that some of 'em'll root and sprout on the filled bank your side of the parrotpet."

"Oh, it's a parapet you mean!" exclaimed Miss Emmy; "a wall something like a fort. That proves the reports that John Angus is anxious to please his bride and let her carry out her tastes, for she has a charming rose garden at their estate on the Hudson that ends in a stone parapet overlooking the river."

"Only this one overlooks the post-office and me, though I believe they can see over the trees to salt water," said Gilbert, dryly; and then his frown changed to a smile, as the lady baby, tiring of her fingering inspection of Miss Emmy's ribbons, crawled to his knee with the sidewheel motion she used when she wished to hurry, and holding her head on one side like an inquisitive bird, stretched out her arms and called "Daddy!" with unmistakable clearness.