it, he simply knows that somewhere he has seen something that he fancies may be somewhat like what we want; and too often when we try to follow his vague and jejune clue, we go upon a “thankless arrant.” We once addressed to an old Yankee farmer, who had brought a load of apples into town, the stereotyped inquiry which we have asked, ah! how many hundred times, and received this drawling answer, “No-o I donow as I know anyone as has got any old furnitoor or chayner she wants ter part with. My wife haint got any anyway. My Aunt Rebecca’s got one curous old plate and I guess she’d sell it—she’d sell her teeth if any-body’d buy ’em an’ pay enough ter suit her.” We finally extracted from him (after much parrying of our direct questions) that, “she got it in Washington more’n fifty year ago,” that “the folks set great store by it, and said it came from Mount Vernon and belonged to Marthy Washington,” that it had the names of the States around it, “it was blue and perhaps green too, and it had stars sure and he guessed they were gilt.” Now we had seen pieces of the Martha Washington tea-set, and we knew that it was decorated in blue and green with the names of the States in the links of a chain, and the initials M. W. in the centre in a great gilt star. We knew at once that Aunt Rebecca’s plate must be one of that set. What a discovery! [Illustration: The Plate we Hoped to Find and the Plate we Found.] To the benighted and narrow-lived souls who have never hunted for old china it may seem strange that we knew at once that it was one of those rare plates; but I am sure every china hunter, whose path is always illumined by the brilliant possibilities which form such an encouragement in the pleasures of the china chase, will fully comprehend our confidence and anticipation. We figured our plate in all the loan collections, marked with our names in large letters as joint owners; we planned a velvet silver-bound box to safely hold our “heavenly jewel” after we had caught it; we even hesitatingly thought that we might make our joint will and leave it to the Mount Vernon Association—and then we drove eighteen miles to secure it. I shall never forget the sickening disappointment I felt when I saw the Martha Washington plate. There were the names of the States; and stars there were, but not a gilt one. And where were the touches of verdant color? All was blue—deeply, darkly, vilely blue. At any other time we should have hailed the fine “States” plate which was shown us with keen delight, but now we could hardly speak or bear to look at it. At last, in sullen disparagement, we offered a dollar for it, had our offer accepted, carelessly took it, threw it on the carriage-seat and drove away. I reviled the farmer and his villainous memory and vocabulary, and would not look at the deep-dyed “States” impostor for a month, but when I heard that a collector had paid twenty dollars for a similar plate in New York, I