I not had Mrs.
Greggory's assurance that she wished to sell the teapot."

Alice Greggory turned as if stung.

"_Wished to sell!_" She repeated the words with superb disdain. She was
plainly very angry. Her blue-gray eyes gleamed with scorn, and her whole
face was suffused with a red that had swept to the roots of her
soft hair. "Do you think a woman _wishes_ to sell a thing that she's
treasured all her life, a thing that is perhaps the last visible
reminder of the days when she was living--not merely existing?"

"Alice, Alice, my love!" protested the sweet-faced cripple, agitatedly.

"I can't help it," stormed the girl, hotly. "I know how much you think
of that teapot that was grandmother's. I know what it cost you to make
up your mind to sell it at all. And then to hear these people talk about
your _wishing_ to sell it! Perhaps they think, too, we _wish_ to live
in a place like this; that we _wish_ to have rugs that are darned,
and chairs that are broken, and garments that are patches instead of
clothes!"

"Alice!" gasped Mrs. Greggory in dismayed horror.

With a little outward fling of her two hands Alice Greggory stepped
back. Her face had grown white again.

"I beg your pardon, of course," she said in a voice that was bitterly
quiet. "I should not have spoken so. You are very kind, Mr. Henshaw, but
I do not think we care to sell the Lowestoft to-day."

Both words and manner were obviously a dismissal; and with a puzzled
sigh William Henshaw picked up his hat. His face showed very clearly
that he did not know what to do, or what to say; but it showed, too, as
clearly, that he longed to do something, or say something. During the
brief minute that he hesitated, however, Billy sprang forward.

"Mrs. Greggory, please, won't you let _me_ buy the teapot? And
then--won't you keep it for me--here? I haven't the hundred dollars with
me, but I'll send it right away. You will let me do it, won't you?"

It was an impulsive speech, and a foolish one, of course, from the
standpoint of sense and logic and reasonableness; but it was one that
might be expected, perhaps, from Billy.

Mrs. Greggory must have divined, in a way, the spirit that prompted it,
for her eyes grew wet, and with a choking "Dear child!" she reached out
and caught Billy's hand in both her own--even while she shook her head
in denial.

Not so her daughter. Alice Greggory flushed scarlet. She drew herself
proudly erect.

"Thank you," she said with c