All she could see of this cloaked cavalryman was two dark, youthful eyes above the upturned collar of the cloak, shadowed, too, by the wet hat brim, drooping under gilded crossed sabres.
“You are not the usual mail-carrier?” she asked languidly.
“No, ma’am”—in a nasal voice.
“Colonel Gay sent you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Carryl turned, lifted a small salt sack, and offered it to the Messenger, who leaned wide from her saddle and took it in one hand.
“You are to take this bag to the Deal farm. Colonel Gay has told you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. And there is no letter to-day. Will you have a few peaches to eat on the way? I always give the mail-carrier some of my peaches to eat.”
Miss Carryl lifted a big, blue china bowl full of superb, white, rare-ripe peaches, and, coming to the veranda’s edge, motioned the Messenger to open the saddlebags. Into it she poured a number of peaches.