"Mr. Dennis," said Mrs. Grey, consulting the card for the name, "you lose sight of a very important fact. I have not offered my furniture for sale, nor have had the slightest intention of parting with it. Is it your habit to push through houses in this impertinent manner, assuming that your presence, and your appraisals, and offers to purchase are welcome? You will remain, sir, precisely where you are; my house is not open for your inspection, nor are its contents for sale. The reason for the presence here of so many relics of the past, which you seem to consider remarkable, is very simple. This house has remained in one family for more than two hundred years, and its treasures have not been on the market. They are not for sale now. You will withdraw at once. This front door is the safer way; the goat is still in the orchard." Demetrius Dennis beamed on the indignant lady with an indulgent and approving smile. "My dear madam," he said, "I see that you have an eye for business, and there is nothing that I do so admire as business sense. It is right for you to hold out for as large a price as you can get, and of course the more you seem not to care to sell, the more likely we are to persist and come down with something handsome. Something handsome it will be, I assure you, Mrs. Grey, and that I have told you frankly from the beginning. It has never come in my way to notice that people wouldn't sell in the end if they got what they wanted for their stuff. We shall not balk at a good price, because the collection includes so much that it will be worth our while to take it entire, and I don't mean that any other dealer shall get it." There was a certainty of common understanding in the man's manner that disarmed Mrs. Grey's indignation as it stirred her sense of humor. It was perfectly evident that he considered himself her benefactor, and felt sure that, after some necessary delays for finesse, the furniture would be his. Whereat not only he would be entirely happy but he would leave the Greys even more so in the possession of a check large enough to furnish the little house over again in shining, highly varnished newness. Her eyes softened into a laugh of pure amusement, which she prevented from reaching her lips, but Wythie and Rob were too young to be tolerant of impertinence, and Rob's eyes emitted an indignant flash as she said sternly: "You have heard my mother's order to leave the house. She has told you that its contents are not for sale. You will immediately obey her: there is the door." "Now, why should you be huffy, my dear young lady?" began Mr. Dennis, reasonably. "Can't you see it's for your advantage to sell, and don't you suppose that I don't want to go back to town and report a failure? I don't generally fail, you know, when my head sends me out to buy for him."