even willing to supply the wax.

They know all about post-offices in Thrums now, and even jeer at the
telegraph-boy's uniform. In the old days they gathered round him
when he was seen in the street, and escorted him to his destination
in triumph. That, too, was after Lizzie had gone the way of all the
earth. But perhaps they are not even yet as knowing as they think
themselves. I was told the other day that one of them took out a
postal order, meaning to send the money to a relative, and kept the
order as a receipt.

I have said that the town is sometimes full of snow. One frosty
Saturday, seven years ago, I trudged into it from the school-house,
and on the Monday morning we could not see Thrums anywhere.

I was in one of the proud two-storied houses in the place, and could
have shaken hands with my friends without from the upper windows. To
get out of doors you had to walk upstairs. The outlook was a sea of
snow fading into white hills and sky, with the quarry standing out
red and ragged to the right like a rock in the ocean. The Auld Licht
manse was gone, but had left its garden-trees behind, their lean
branches soft with snow. Roofs were humps in the white blanket. The
spire of the Established Kirk stood up cold and stiff, like a
monument to the buried inhabitants.

Those of the natives who had taken the precaution of conveying
spades into their houses the night before, which is my plan at the
school-house, dug themselves out. They hobbled cautiously over the
snow, sometimes sinking into it to their knees, when they stood
still and slowly took in the situation. It had been snowing more or