fed. The
rhyme explains the reason:

The jovial days of feasting past,
'Tis pious prudence come at last;
And eager gluttony is taught
To be content with what it ought.

A warming pan and a foot stove, just as it was brought home from a merry
sleigh-ride, or a solemn hour at the "meetin'-house," recalling that
line of Thomas Gray's:

E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

Sometimes I would offer a little more to gain some coveted treasure
already bid off. How a city friend enjoyed the confidences of a man who
had agreed to sell for a profit! How he chuckled as he told of "one of
them women who he guessed was a leetle crazy." "Why, jest think on't! I
only paid ten cents for that hull lot on the table yonder, and <i>she</i>"
(pointing to me) "<i>she</i> gin me a quarter for that old pair o' tongs!"

One day I heard some comments on myself after I had bid on a rag carpet
and offered more than the other women knew it was worth.

"She's got a million, I hear."

"Wanter know--merried?"

"No; just an old maid."

"Judas Priest! Howd she git it?"

"Writin', I 'spoze. She writes love stories and sich for city papers.
Some on 'em makes a lot."

It is not always cheering to overhear too much. When some of my friends,
whom I had taken to a favorite junk shop, felt after two hours of
purchase and exploration that they must not keep me waiting any longer,
the man, in his eagerness to make a few more sales, exclaimed: "Let her
wait; <i>her</i> time ain't wuth nothin'!"

At an auction last summer, one man told me of a very venerable lantern,
an heirloom in his first wife's family, <i>so</i> long, measuring nearly a
yard with his hands. I said I should like to go with him to see it, as I
was making a collection of lanterns. He looked rather dazed, and as I
turned away he inquired of my friend "if I wusn't <i>rather</i>--" She never
allowed him to finish, and his lantern is now mine.

People seem to have but little sentiment about their associations with
furniture long in the family.

The family and a few intimate friends usually sit at the upper windows
gazing curiously on the crowd, with no evidence of feeling or pathetic
recollections.

I lately heard a daughter say less than a month after her father's
death, pointing to a small cretonne-covered lounge: "Father made me that
lounge with his own hands when I's a little girl. He tho't a sight on't
it, and allers kep' it 'round. But my house is full now.