CONTENTS.

CHAPTERPAGE
I. [How it Began,][5]
II. [The Honorary Member,][18]
III. [A Narrow Escape,][32]
IV. [The Mysterious Tenant,][46]
V. [The Invasion of the Amazons,][57]
VI. [Further Acquaintance,][69]
VII. [A New Member,][82]
VIII. [Margery's Plan,][96]
IX. [One Honorary Member to the Other Honorary Member,][104]
X. [A Picnic,][118]
XI. [A Wedding,][132]
XII. [The End of the Year and of the Post-Office,][143]

[THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE.]

[CHAPTER I.]

HOW IT BEGAN.

It was wonderful that any one could have a bright idea on such a dark day. It had rained in torrents all of the night before and throughout the forenoon, and now that the rain had ceased, the sodden earth sent up clouds of steaming dampness to mingle with the thick fog descending, and they blended together like two gray ghosts of pleasant weather. The lilacs drooped in discouragement, and a draggle-tailed robin sat with hanging wings on the fence, uttering an occasional chirp of protest in such vehement disgust that every time he made the remark it tilted him forward, and agitated him to the tip of his tail. A slender boy lay on the hearth-rug in the light of the fire kindled to dry the dampness, the warmth of which was grateful, although it was almost June. He was recklessly pulling a stitch that was broken in the knee of his stocking all the way down to the ankle, and the gloomy expression of his face indicated a melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that he had no business to do this.