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“What does it cost?” Mauney asked.

“Only five dollars per year,” he replied politely, removing an eye-shade from his forehead, and staring anxiously at his customer. “Of course, I’m the local agent, you know,” he added.

“Oh! are you?”

“Oh, yes—yes,” he said, with a nervous little laugh, his hands together as if in the act of ablution.

For a moment Mauney hesitated, while his hand, deep in his pocket, felt the crisp treasury note with which he was so tempted to part. A number of considerations caused him to weigh well his present transaction, but he soon gave his initials to the eager postmaster and went home satisfied.

Seth Bard had, of course, always been able to find sufficient news in the Beulah Weekly. It is doubtful if he would have spent the annual dollar on it except for the long column advertising farm sales. He usually spent half an hour searching this portion of the paper, then a listless five minutes over the personal column, which, to his particular mind, provided an amusing satire, only to fall asleep, later, as he tried to read the fragmentary generalities that filled the stereotyped section. The hired girl religiously preserved the editions until she had found time to read the instalments of a continued love story. When the Merlton Globe began to arrive with the name of “Mr. Mauney Bard” upon it, a precedent seemed to have been established for introducing unwelcome new factors into the self-sufficient household.