?"
asked Bet.

"No. It's a beauty mark."

While the young people were making merry over their lunch, the door of
the shop opened and shuffling feet were heard outside in the front room.

Bet jumped up excitedly, "Maybe it's a customer! Oh girls!"

"Oh, I hope it isn't!" exclaimed Shirley. "We haven't got anything for
sale yet."

"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Gruff," Bet's voice was heard from the back
room. "You are our first visitor."

"What you doing here?" Peter asked abruptly.

"Listen to the old grouch," whispered Joy to Shirley. "One would think
he owned this store."

"Ssh! Keep quiet, Joy. Let's hear what he's saying."

Bet answered the old man in her sweetest manner. "We're opening an art
shop. We'll be your next door neighbor, Mr. Gruff."

"What are you going to sell? Antiques?"

"Not just at present. Perhaps later we may," answered Bet.

"Don't do it. There's no money in antiques! Not a penny. Of course
if you want them, I'll be able to get them for you. I go to all the
auctions. I went away out to Connecticut the other day to get some old
lamps."

"And did you get them? What were they like?" questioned Bet.

"I didn't get them. They went too high. That's the reason I say
there's no money in antiques. It used to be one could pick up things
for almost nothing."

"Yes people learned to value their old things."

"Are you Colonel Baxter's girl? I thought so! Now there's a man who
knows antiques. Can't get ahead of him on a buy. He knows just what a
thing should sell for and half the time he can tell me to a penny what
I paid for it."

Bet laughed heartily at this, for she remembered her father telling her
how old Peter had tried to sell him some candlesticks at an exorbitant
price.

"Seein' as it's you, Colonel Baxter," he had said, "You can have this
pair of candlesticks for fifteen dollars."

"Too much, Mr. Gruff," the Colonel answered emphatically.

"Ten dollars then, Colonel Baxter. I won't be making a penny on them,
not one."

"No, Peter, I'll be going to an auction myself soon, and I can pick up
candlesticks anytime."

"Now Colonel Baxter, bein' as it's you, I don't mind losing a little
money on those sticks. Ain't they beauties now? You can have the pair
of them for seven dollars. Will you take them with you or shall I send
them up to the Manor?"

"That's too much, Peter. You know you got those candlesticks thrown in
when you bought that highboy and the