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“Not a luxury, but a necessary, I say, and indispensable,” returned the postmaster. “I don’t know what I wouldn’t rather do without than a newspaper. What in the world are Phœbe, and Jane, and Margaret going to do?”

“They will have to do without. There is no help for it.”

“If they don’t raise a storm about your ears that you will be glad to allay, even at the cost of half a dozen newspapers, I am mistaken,” said the postmaster, laughing.

Ashburn replied, as he turned to walk away, that he thought he could face all storms of that kind without flinching.

“Give me the ‘Post,’ papa,” said Margaret, running to the door to meet her father when she saw him coming.

“I haven’t got it,” replied Mr. Ashburn, feeling rather uncomfortable.

“Why? Hasn’t it come?”

“No; is hasn’t come.”

Margaret looked very much disappointed.

“It has never missed before,” she said, looking earnestly at her father.

No suspicion of the truth was in her mind; but, to the eyes of her father, her countenance was full of suspicion. Still, he had not the courage to confess what he had done.

“The ‘Post’ hasn’t come!” he heard Margaret say to her sisters, a few minutes afterwards, and their expressions of disappointment fell rebukingly upon his ears.

It seemed to Mr. Ashburn that he heard of little else, while in the house, during the whole day, but the failure of the newspaper. When night came, even he, as he sat with nothing to do but think about the low price of wheat for an hour before bedtime, missed his old friend with the welcome face, that had so often amused, instructed, and interested him.

On Monday morning the girls were very urgent for their father to ride over to the post-office and see if the paper hadn’t come; but, of course, the farmer was “too busy” for that. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the same excuse was made. On Thursday, Margaret asked a neighbour, who was going by the office, to call and get the newspaper for them. Towards evening, Mr Markland, the neighbour, was seen riding down the road, and Margaret and Jane ran down eagerly to the gate for the newspaper.

“Did you get the paper for us?” asked Margaret, showing two smiling rows of milk-white teeth, while her eyes danced with anticipated pleasure.

Mr. Markland shook his head.

“Why?” asked both the girls at once.

“The postmaster says it has been stopped.”

“Stopped!” How changed were their faces and tones of voice.

“Yes. He says your father directed it to be stopped.”

“That must be a mistake,” said Margaret. “He would have told us.”

Mr. Markland rode on, and the girls ran back into the house.

“Father, the postmaster says you have stopped the newspaper!” exclaimed his daughters, breaking in upon Mr. Ashburn’s no very pleasant reflections on the low price of wheat, and the difference in the return he would receive at ninety cents a bushel to what he would have realized at the last year’s price of a dollar twenty-five.

“It’s true,” he replied, trenching himself behind a firm, decided manner.

“But why did you stop it, father?” inquired the girls.

“Because I can’t afford to take it. It’s as much, as I shall be able to do to get you enough to eat and wear this year.”

Mr. Ashburn’s manner was decided, and his voice had a repelling tone.

Margaret and Phœbe could say no more; but they did not leave their father’s presence without giving his eyes the benefit of seeing a free gush of tears. It would be doing injustice to Mr. Ashburn’s state of mind to say that he felt very comfortable, or had done so, since stopping the “Post,” an act for which he had sundry times more than half repented. But, as it had been done, he could not think of recalling it.

Very sober were the faces that surrounded the supper-table that evening; and but few words were spoken. Mr. Ashburn felt oppressed, and also fretted to think that his daughters should make both themselves and him unhappy about the trifle of a newspaper, when he had such serious troubles to bear.