"Hm-m! To be sure, to be sure," her husband had murmured; but his face was troubled, and later he had said, apologetically: "You see, Hannah, there's the farm things. We don't need them." On Tuesday night Mrs. John and the somewhat awesome Maria--to whom Grandpa and Grandma Burton never could learn not to curtsy--arrived; and almost at once Grandma Burton discovered that not only "farm things," but such precious treasures as the hair wreath and the parlor--set were auctionable. In fact, everything the house contained, except their clothing and a few crayon portraits, seemed to be in the same category. "But, mother, dear," Mrs. John had returned, with a laugh, in response to Grandma Burton's horrified remonstrances, "just wait until you see your rooms, and how full they are of beautiful things, and then you'll understand." "But they won't be--these," the old voice had quavered. And Mrs. John had laughed again, and had patted her mother-in-law's cheek, and had echoed-but with a different shade of meaning--"No, they certainly won't be these!" In the attic now, on a worn black trunk, sat the little old man, and down on the floor before an antiquated cradle knelt his wife. "They was all rocked in it, Seth," she was saying,--"John and the twins and my two little girls; and now there ain't any one left only John--and the cradle." "I know, Hannah, but you ain't _usin'_ that nowadays, so you don't really need it," comforted the old man. "But there's my big chair now--seems as though we jest oughter take that. Why, there ain't a day goes by that I don't set in it!" "But John's wife says there's better ones there, Seth," soothed the old woman in her turn, "as much as four or five of 'em right in our rooms." "So she did, so she did!" murmured the man. "I'm an ongrateful thing; so I be." There was a long pause. The old man drummed with his fingers on the trunk and watched a cloud sail across the skylight. The woman gently swung the cradle to and fro. "If only they wan't goin' ter be--sold!" she choked, after a time. "I like ter know that they're where I can look at 'em, an' feel of 'em, an'--an' remember things. Now there's them quilts with all my dress pieces in 'em--a piece of most every dress I've had since I was a girl; an' there's that hair wreath--seems as if I jest couldn't let that go, Seth. Why, there's your hair, an' John's, an' some of the twins', an'--" "There, there, dear; now I jest wouldn't fret," cut in the old man quickly. "Like enough when you get used ter them other things on the wall you'll like 'em even better than the hair wreath. John's wife says she's taken lots of pains an' fixed 'em up with pictures an' curtains an' everythin' nice," went on Seth, talking very fast. "Why, Hannah, it's you that's bein' ongrateful now, dear!" "So 'tis, so 'tis, Seth, an' it ain't right an' I know it. I ain't a-goin' ter do so no more; now see!" And she bravely turned her back on the cradle and walked, head erect, toward the attic stairs.