r
bid than ten cents, it was withdrawn by the disgusted widow, who put it
aside with her dish pan and towels and gown, and then went to find Tim
to take them home.

Howard had been called by Ruby into the room where Amy's dresses were
lying in the boxes just as they came, and asked what they were to do
with them.

"We could not offer them for sale, and she does not want them back," she
said.

"Send them to the Colonel. She'll never know it, and the chance is will
never think of them again," Howard said, and then hurried outside to
where Eloise was still waiting and talking to Tom.

"That apron went first rate," he said. "You must have felt glad they
thought so much of you, 'cause 'twas you and not the apron, though that
was pretty enough."

"Oh!" Eloise replied, drawing her ermine cape around her shoulders, "I
don't know whether I was glad or not. I felt as if I were being sold to
the highest bidder."

"That's so," Tom said. "It was something like it. Ain't you glad 'twas
Mr. Harcourt bought you instead of t'other?"

Eloise laughed as she replied, "Why, Thomas, it was _you_ who bought me!
Have you forgotten?"

She seemed so much in earnest that for a moment Tom thought she was, and
said, "You ain't so green as not to know that 'twas Mr. Harcourt eggin'
me on,--winkin' to me when to raise, and tellin' me to go high! You are
his'n, and I'm glad on't! I like him better than t'other; ain't so big
feelin'. Here they come, both on 'em."

Howard had finished his business with Ruby Ann, and Jack had paid his
five dollars and received the apron, slightly mussed, but looking fairly
well in the box in which they put it. A good many people were leaving
the rooms again, and among them Tim, laden with his mother's dish pan
and towels, and dress and brass kettle, and one or two articles which
she had bought.

"Hallo, Tim! You look some like a pack horse," Tom said, but Tim did not
answer.

He was very tired, for with so many calling upon him through the day and
evening; he had run miles and received only seventy cents for it. He was
chagrined that he had raised his own bid, and wondered Tom did not chaff
him. It would come in time, he knew, and he felt angry at Tom, and angry
with the brass kettle and dish pan and dress which kept him from
wheeling Eloise instead of Tom, who, when they finally started, took his
place behind the chair as a matter of course, while Howard and Jack
walked on either side. It was a splendid