He had no relatives, no friends with whom he corresponded, no business that was not conducted by word of mouth.

In the last fifteen years he had received but one letter, and that had so surprised him that he carried it about with him three days before he opened it, and then he found that it was really intended for a gentleman of the same name in another county.

And yet everybody knew that if Colonel Iston failed to appear in his place on mail day, it would be because he was dead or prostrated by sickness.
With the mail bag on the floor at her left, Miss Harriet, totally oblivious of any law forbidding the opening of the mails in public, would put her hand into its open mouth, draw forth a letter or a paper, hold it up in front of her spectacles, and call out the name of its owner.

Most of the letters went to the black boys with the mail bags who came from country houses in the neighborhood, but whoever received letter, journal, or agricultural circular, received also at the same time the earnest gaze of everybody else in the room.

Sometimes there was a letter for which there was no applicant present and then Miss Harriet would say: "Is anybody going past Mrs Willis Summerses ?" And if anybody was, he would take the letter, and it is to be hoped he remembered to deliver it in the course of a week.
In spite of the precautions of the postmistress uncalled for letters would gradually accumulate, and there was a little bundle of these in one of the few pigeon holes in a small desk in the corner of the room, in the drawer of which the postage stamps were kept.