In country villages, where few events happen to interrupt the monotony of every day life, the occurrence of an out-of-the-way incident is like seed sown in a fertile soil, producing a fruitful crop of speculations and surmises, and affording food for conversation for many a day to the eager gossip-hunters who abound in such small places.

About thirty years ago, the quiet town of Lebanon, in the State of Connecticut, was enlivened by one of these occurrences, which brought a new influx of curiosity-mongers to the blacksmith's shop; covered all the barrels, boxes, and counters in the store with eager disputants, and gave new life to the Sewing Society, and its auxiliary "tea-fights." The cause of this unwonted moving of the waters, was on this wise:

Mr. Jonathan Little, a well known New York merchant, while on a summer visit to Lebanon, his native place, mailed at that office a letter directed to the firm of which he was a member, and containing bank-notes to the amount of one thousand dollars. The letter failing to arrive at its destination, and Special Agents being as yet unknown, Mr. Little advertised in several papers, describing the money lost, and offering a reward for its recovery. This, however, produced no results, and the tide of speculation and discussion rose to its highest pitch.

The loss of the bewildering sum of one thousand dollars naturally stimulated the imaginative powers of the Lebanonians, and, hurried away by his zeal, or perhaps by a wish to appear sagacious, Mr. Roger Bailey, the brother of the Lebanon post master, while in conversation with several persons, incautiously asserted that Amasa Hyde, the post master at Franklin, (the next town to Lebanon on the route to New York,) had taken the letter, adding, "He's just such a fellow."

The by-standers were rather astonished at this bold charge, impeaching as it did the integrity of a man whose character had always been above suspicion. That "bird of the air" which is always ready to "carry the matter," soon diffused the information that Amasa Hyde was supposed to be the delinquent. This gentleman being indisposed to leave his reputation at the mercy of "thousand-tongued Rumor," which personage could not easily be brought before a jury, instituted inquiries for the purpose of discovering the originator of these injurious reports. He succeeded in tracing them to their source, and sued the unwary Bailey for slander. Mr. B., by the verdict of the jury, was compelled to pay some seven hundred dollars and costs, for the pleasure of expressing his opinion.

This, however, is but an episode in the history of the lost letter. After a while the excitement died away, and Mr. Little found it necessary to place the thousand dollars to the account of "Profit and Loss," especially the latter.

The theory was once advanced by an acute genius, and applied to the case of a tea-kettle inadvertently dropped into the ocean, that "a thing isn't lost when you know where it is." But the subject in hand seems to show that a thing isn't always lost, if you don't know where it is. For, about two years after the occurrences above mentioned, the missing letter came to light with all its valuable contents. And this resuscitation took place, not in Lebanon, nor in Franklin, but in the New London post-office!

It appears that the mail bag which contained the letter, was found, on its arrival at New London, so much worn as to be unsafe, and was accordingly condemned by the post master and thrown aside as useless, having first, of course, been emptied of its contents, as was supposed. Two years subsequently, a quantity of old mail bags and other rubbish was removed from the office, and the letter in question took the opportunity to drop out, and return, an epistolary Rip Van Winkle, to the world whence it had retired for so long a time.