Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1890,
By SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
TO
S. W.
PAINTER OF NEW ENGLAND MEN AND WOMEN
NEW ENGLAND FIELDS AND SHORES
The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation
The passenger and mail transportationbetween the towns of North Kilby and SanscritPond was carried on by Mr. JeffersonBriley, whose two-seated covered wagon wasusually much too large for the demands ofbusiness. Both the Sanscrit Pond andNorth Kilby people were stayers-at-home,and Mr. Briley often made his seven-milejourney in entire solitude, except for thelimp leather mail-bag, which he held firmlyto the floor of the carriage with his heavilyshod left foot. The mail-bag had almost apersonality to him, born of long association.Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-lookingbody, but he held a warlike soul, and encouragedhis fancies by reading awful talesof bloodshed and lawlessness, in the farWest. Mindful of stage robberies and trainthieves, and of express messengers who diedat their posts, he was prepared for anything;and although he had trusted to his ownstrength and bravery these many years, hecarried a heavy pistol under his front-se