"Lee ought to be reported for this--and punished. There might have been a bank-note in the letter."
"Of course there might," assented Helen. "And for Johnny Ludlow to want to excuse him, and ask me to hush it up!"
"Just like Johnny! In such things he is an out-and-out muff. How would the world go on, I wonder, if Johnny ruled it? You ought to have shown it to the Squire at once, Helen."
"So I should but for Johnny and Anna. As they had asked me not to, I did not quite like to fly in their faces. But I am going to show it to your postmaster at Timberdale."
"Oh, Helen!" involuntarily breathed Anna. And Tod looked up.
"Don't mind her," said Helen. "She and Johnny are just alike--making excuses for every one. Rymer the chemist is postmaster, is he not?"
"Rymer's dead--don't you remember that, Helen? Before he died, he gave up the post-office business. Salmon, the grocer opposite, took to it."
This Salmon was brother to the Salmon (grocer and draper) at South Crabb. Both were long-headed men, and flourishing tradesmen in their small way.
"Poor old Lee!" cried Tod, with a shade of pity. "He is too ailing and feeble; we have often said it. But of course he must be taught not to set fire to the letters."
Anna's eyelashes were wet. "Suppose, by your complaining, you should get him turned out of his post?" she suggested, with the timid deference she might have observed to a royal duke--but in the presence of those two she always lost her courage. Tod answered her gently. When he was gentle to any one, it was to her.
"No fear of that, Anna. Salmon will blow old Lee up, and there'll be an end of it. Whose letter was it, Helen?"
"It was from Mr. Leafchild--about our schools," answered Helen, turning her face away that he might not see its sudden rush of colour.
Well, they made their complaint to Salmon; who was properly indignant and said he would look into it, Tod putting in a word for the offender, Lee. "We don't want him reported to headquarters, or anything of that kind, you know, Salmon. Just give him a reprimand, and warn him to be cautious in future."
(The final result of the burning of this letter of Helen Whitney's, and of another person's letter that got burnt later, was recorded in the last Series, in a paper called "Lee the Letter-Man."