Although an artless and innocent young girl, fresh from the western shores of Erin, May had a peculiar, and, in one of her age and sex, almost pert way of putting questions, to which she often received quaint and curious replies.
For instance one afternoon she addressed to a learned doctor the following query:—
“Can you send copy last prescription? Lost it. Face red as a carrot. In agonies! What shall I do? Help!”
To which the learned doctor gave the matter-of-fact but inelegant reply:—
“Stick your feet in hot water. Go to bed at once. Prescription sent by post. Take it every hour.”
But May Maylands did not stick her feet in hot water; neither did she go to bed, or take any physic. Indeed there was no occasion to do so, for a clear complexion and pink cheeks told of robust health.
On another occasion she asked an Irish farmer if he could send her twenty casks of finest butter to cost not more than 6 pence per pound.
To which the farmer was rude enough to answer— “Not by no manner of means.”
In short May’s conduct was such that we must hasten to free her from premature condemnation by explaining that she was a female telegraphist in what we may call the literary lungs of London—the General Post-Office at St. Martin’s-le-Grand.
On that chill December afternoon, during a brief lull in her portion of the telegraphic communication of the kingdom, May leaned her little head on her hand, and sent her mind to the little cottage by the sea, already described as lying on the west coast of Ireland, with greater speed than ever she flashed those electric sparks which it was her business to scatter broadcast over the land. The hamlet, near which the cottage stood, nestled under the shelter of a cliff as if in expectation and dread of being riven from its foundations by the howling winds, or whelmed in the surging waves. The cottage itself was on the outskirts of the hamlet, farther to the south. The mind of May entered through its closed door,—for mind, like electricity, laughs at bolts and bars.