As the maiden withdrew, a buggy rattled up to the door of the little shop. In the broad strip of light formed by the lamp opposite the door, the creaking vehicle stopped short. A dumpy female in a nondescript black garment took the reins, while her male companion descended heavily, putting both feet upon the step, and cautiously lowering himself to the ground close beside the spot where Flint and Brady stood. Once assured that he had reached the ground in safety, he proceeded to take off his wrinkled duster, fold it tenderly, and lay it on the seat, from beneath which he pulled out a bulky bundle, securely tied up in bed-ticking. Flint watched the rustic with idle curiosity, as the old man entered the store and deposited his bundle on the counter. Marsden sat on a chair with no back, nursing his knee and assuming indifference to the entrance of the new-comer. "Be thar any market naow for _quilts_, or _be_ thar?" asked the old farmer, somewhat anxiously, while untying the knots of his parcel. "I dunno ez thar be, and I dunno _ez_ thar be," Marsden answered. Both parties seemed to understand each other perfectly. They approached as warily as two foxes. When the roll was finally spread out on the counter, the dim lamplight flickered over a patchwork quilt of the familiar log-cabin pattern, gay with colors as varied as those of Joseph's coat. "What cher s'pose yer could give fur this?" the new-comer asked with a relapse into unwary eagerness, and an irrepressible pride in this evidence of the household industry of his women folk. "Dunno, I'm sure," said Marsden, slowly, shifting his quid of tobacco and spitting meditatively on the floor. "Shop-keepin' 's all a resk anyhow. I'll give yer seventy-five cents for it though, jest for a gamble; but nobody has much use for quilts in this weather, except to hide their heads under from the skeeters." "Truth will out," whispered Flint. "Marsden always declares that mosquitoes are unknown at Nepaug." The owner of the quilt shook his head dubiously. "Couldn't you go a dollar on it?" he queried. "It took my wife a month to make it, sewin' evenin's." "Did--did it?" "Yaas, 'n' it's made out of pieces of the children's clothes, and some on 'em 's dead--and associations ought to caount for somethin'." "Will it last?" questioned the cautious Marsden, twitching it this way and that, and testing the material with his thumb-nail, which he kept long and sharp apparently for the purpose of detecting flaws in dry-goods. "Wall," assumed the other, somewhat nettled by the purchaser's skepticism, "I reckon it'll last ez long ez a dollar will." "Mebbe," said Marsden, quite impressed by the logic of this last statement. "Anyhaow I'll give you ninety cents, and that's my last figger." The man glanced furtively over his shoulder at the female in the buggy, who sat twitching the reins impatiently, then he hitched up closer to Marsden and held out a dime.