er old twice over, she has never lost gayety or
courage. Grandma and Heppie think it wicked and frivolous of her not to
"bow to God's will," but I think she is a marvel, and I love every
little funny way and trick she has.

I don't know Mrs. James well enough to call her my friend, because I
don't often see her, and we've never been left alone together when she's
called on Grandma; Heppie took me to her house only once, just after
she'd grown poor through the breaking of some savings-bank, and turned
her little drawing-room into an antique shop. I fancy Heppie wanted to
go simply to spy out the nakedness of the land and satisfy curiosity in
Grandma. But I've never forgotten that day, and how brave and bright
Mrs. James was, selling off the pretty old things which she had loved:
heirlooms of her family and her husband's; old clocks, old vases, old
ornaments, and jewels, old china and glass, old samplers and bits of
embroidery or brocade, old furniture, old pictures and transparencies,
and everything of value except old books, which she adored because his
library had been her husband's life. It was clever of her, I think, to
group the treasures together in the little drawing-room with its oak
panelling and beams, its uneven, polished oak floor, and the two
diamond-paned windows which she enlarged and threw into one. It is not
like a shop, but just a charming room crowded full of lovely things, and
every one of them for sale, even the chairs. She wrote cards of
advertisement which the hotel people let her pin up in their halls or
offices, because they respected her pluck, and had liked Doctor James.
Americans and other travellers saw the advertisements, and went to her
house; so by and by Mrs. James made a success with her experiment. When
most of her own antiquites were sold, she could afford to buy others,
just as good or better, to take their places. She never made big sums of
money; but maybe that was because she had debts of her husband's to pay
off, which she kept secret. Besides, she is so generous and kind that
she would give good prices for things in buying, and ask small ones in
selling.

"Mrs. James: Antiquities;" it says in gilt letters over the door on
which you can still see the mark left by the professional name-plate of
Doctor James. His wife had that taken off before she opened her shop,
because she felt that her going into trade might seem to discredit "his
honoured name."

That is her great watchword: