The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a long, silent laugh. "I'm afraid you don't know me, after all!" he said, pleasantly. "I'm Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems to have miscarried too."
Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept silent.
"I ought to have explained," he went on smilingly; "but you are quite right, Mrs. Baker," he added, nodding toward the bag. "As far as you knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to defend Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to know" (pointing to the wire) "if that thing was on the bag when it was delivered to you?"
Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all this official was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should understand her power. "It's only the expressman's foolishness," she said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. "He thinks it smart to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down."
Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not inhuman or unpardonable folly. "As long as he doesn't meddle with the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said, laughingly. A dreadful recollection that the Hickory Hill postmaster had used the inside of the bag to convey his foolishness came across her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal, half-reassuring air, "But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to my business here! Briefly, then, it doesn't concern you in the least, except so far as it may relieve you and some others whom the Department knows equally well from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps, anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns Laurel Run, and I think" (with a slight bow), "we've known all about you and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night in receiving the 'Omnibus Way Bag,' that you know arrives here at 9.30, doesn't it?"
"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Baker, hurriedly; "but it never has anything for us, except—" (she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as she remembered the sighing Green's occasional offerings), "except a notification from Hickory Hill Post-Office. It leaves there," she went on with an affectation of precision, "at half-past eight exactly, and it's about an hour's run—seven miles by road."
"Exactly," said Mr. Home. "Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and despatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday."
"But," said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure it offered, "there are the people who come for letters, you know."
"I thought you said there were no letters at that time," said Mr. Home, quickly.
"No—but—but" (with a slight hysterical stammer) "the boys come all the same."