"although I believe I could get more for it, did I know any
one in town who purchased such things."

He made no reply, but calling his clerk ordered him to bring forty
dollars from the safe. The clerk having brought the money retired, and
left them alone again.

"Vere is te pedstead?" asked Swartz.

"It is at home," Mrs. Wentworth replied.

"Den you must pring it round here before I can pay for it," he
observed.

"I am in want of the money now to buy bread," she answered. "If you
will pay me and let your clerk follow with a dray, I would return home
immediately and have the bedstead taken down and sent to you."

Mr. Swartz called the clerk again, and ordered him to bring a dray to
the front of the store. The clerk did as he was requested, and soon
after returned with the intelligence that the dray was ready.

"Do you follow dis voman to her house, and she vill give you a
pedstead. Bring it down here," and then he added, speaking to the
clerk who had not yet left the room: "Vat does te trayman sharge."

"One dollar and a half," was the reply.

Taking up the forty dollars which had been previously brought to him,
Mr. Swartz counted out thirty-eight and a half dollars, and handed
them to Mrs. Wentworth.

"De von tollar and a half out ish to pay for te trayage," he remarked
as she received the money.

She made no reply, but left the room followed by the clerk, when, with
the drayman, they soon arrived at her room. The bedstead was soon
taken down and removed to Mr. Swartz's store.

"Sharge one huntred tollars for dat pedstead," he remarked to his
clerk as soon as it had arrived.

While he was rejoicing at the good speculation he had made, the
soldier's wife sat on a box in her room feeding her half famished
children. The room was now utterly destitute of furniture, but the
heart of the mother rejoiced at the knowledge that for a couple of
weeks longer her children would have food.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

DR. HUMPHRIES BUYS A SLAVE AND BRINGS HOME NEWS.

A few days after Mrs. Wentworth had sold her last piece of furniture,
Dr. Humphries was walking along one of the principal streets in
Jackson when he was stopped by a crowd that had gathered in front of
an auction mart. On walking up he learned that it was a sheriff's sale
of a "likely young negro girl." Remembering that Emma had requested
him to purchase a girl as a waiting maid for her, he examined the
slave and found her in all respects the kind