Miss Lane’s house was a long, low white one, with the Post Office at one end and a blacksmith’s forge at the other. On the turf of the green in front of the door was a circular iron platform with a hole in the middle which was used for putting on tyres to wagon and cart wheels, for she was wheelwright as well as blacksmith and postmistress. She did not work in the forge herself; she dressed in silks of which the colours were brighter than those usually worn then by women of her age and had tiny white hands which she seldom soiled. Hers was the brain of the business.

To go to see Cousin Dorcas, as they had been told to call her, was an exciting event to Laura and Edmund, for they hoped to be shown her famous telegraph machine. There had been some talk about it at home when their parents heard it had been installed, and their mother, who had seen one, described it as a sort of clock face, but with letters instead of figures, “and when you turn the handle,” she said, “the hand goes round and you can spell out words on it, and that sends the hand round on the clock face at the other Post Office where it’s for, and they just write it down, pop it into an envelope, and send it where it’s addressed.”

“And then they know somebody’s going to die,” put in Edmund.