in butter-boxes and went about scrutinizing the household gear
that was to come under the hammer, glad at last to know what the house
walls had really held; or they visited with their neighbors in little
groups. But this was a day of fall sunshine and drifting leaves. Miss
Letty, standing at an upper window looking out on her pear tree, the
leaves leathery brown, felt a twitching of the lips. She gazed farther
over her domain, and it seemed to her that it had never been so pleasant
before, so mellowed and softened by the last light of the year. She knew
there were neighbors in the yard below, and could not bring herself to
glance at them. A line of horses stood there, and, she was sure, all the
way up the lane, and she remembered that was the way they had stood when
her mother was buried.

Then some one laughed out, in a way she knew, and she looked down and
saw Cap'n Oliver. He was staring up at her window, as he answered a
neighbor's greeting, and he gave a little oblique nod at her, and
stumped along up the path. At once she recalled herself to the day, and
went downstairs to meet him. It seemed very simple and plain now he had
come.

The neighbors standing in the entry stood aside to let her pass, but she
could scarcely notice them. It began to seem as if she must reach Cap'n
Oliver, and then all would be well. The cap'n was in vigorous condition.
His face looked ruddier, and he was shaking her hand and saying, as if
she had endowed him with her state of mind:--

"Soon be over, Letty, soon be over. Don't you give it a thought."

"No," said Miss Letty, choking, "I won't. I won't give it a thought."

But at that moment Hiram Jackson, who knew everything and was fervidly
anxious to be the earliest herald, came stammering out his eagerness to
tell.

"Say, Miss Letty. Say! you can't have no auction. You won't have no
auctioneer. Old Blaisdell's wife's sister's dead, down to East Branch,
an' he's gone."

Miss Letty, breathless, looked at the cap'n. "Well, there!" she said. It
was in her mind that now she might not need to have the auction at all;
and again she wondered, since she must have it, how she could ever make
up her mind to it again.

"Oh, dear!" she breathed. "I'm sorry."

The cap'n was frowning at her, only because he was so deep in thought.
He threw up his head a little, then, bluffly, as if he had reached a
clearer decision he meant to follow out.

"Not a word, Letty," said he. "Now don't you spea