"So up-stairs we went, and there wasn't a four-poster bed or a rickety table or a broken-legged chair that she didn't say was 'darling' or 'dear' or 'gorgeous' or 'heavenly'; and they wanted pretty near everything that was up-stairs. When we got through pricin' these, the lady says: 'Is this all the old mahogany you have, Miss Mayfield?' and then I happened to think o' the garret. I hadn't set foot up there for ten years or more, but I remembered there was a lot o' old truck that Mother didn't have room for down-stairs, and it'd been stored away there ever since goodness knows when. So up to the garret we went, they holdin' up their silk skirts, and me apologizin' for the dirt. They peered around, and didn't seem to mind a bit when they got their kid gloves all soiled handlin' the old junk that was settin' around in every hole and corner. And the young girl, she'd give a little scream every time she dragged out a table or a chair, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield, this is the most interesting place I ever was in.' And I says: 'If you're interested in dirt and rubbish, I reckon this is an interestin' place.' "Well, if you'll believe me, Maria Marvin, they wanted everything in that garret, even down to the old pewter warmin'-pan that used to belong to Mother's sister Amanda, and that she got from her husband's family, the Hicks. And the young girl looked out o' the gable window at the south end, and says she: 'Oh! what a lovely old gyarden!' And the lady dropped the old candlestick she was lookin' at, and come and looked over the young girl's shoulder. The gyarden did look mighty pretty with the roses and honeysuckles and pinks all in bloom, and the lady said: 'Oh! how beautiful! How beautiful!' and all the rest of the time we were up in the garret, she stood there at the window and leaned out and looked at the gyarden, and after that she didn't seem to care much about the furniture. She jest let the young girl do the buyin' and the talkin', and once I heard her sigh a long, deep sigh, jest as if she was thinkin' about somethin' that happened a long time ago. And when we went down-stairs, she asked me to give her some roses and honeysuckles; and while I was gatherin' a big bunch of Mother's damask roses for her, she was walkin' up and down the paths, gatherin' a flower here and a leaf there, but to look at her face, Maria, you'd 'a' thought that she was walkin' in a graveyard and every flower-bed was a grave; and once, when she stooped down and broke off a piece of ambrosia and smelt it, I could see there was tears in her eyes. Well, Maria, they were jest as crazy about old-fashioned flowers as they were about old-fashioned furniture. I pulled a big bunch o' damask roses for both of 'em, and they said they wanted roots of all the old flowers,--Mother's hundred-leaf rose and the Maiden's Blush and the cinnamon rose, and all the spring flowers and even the tansy and sage. The lady said they could buy all these things,