I turned with an ill-concealed expression of disgust from this man, and entered the house in search of my friend, for N---- would not quit the old place to the last. There is something melancholy in viewing a sale at any time--the disarrangement of the furniture--the cheerless and chilling aspect of the rooms--the dirt, the bustle, and the heartless indifference one witnesses to the misfortunes of others--all come home forcibly to the feelings. After stumbling and striking my shins amongst piles of chairs, and furniture, and carpets, disposed in lots over the now comfortless apartments, I at last reached the study door where I had spent many a happy hour with N----. I entered; the room was stripped of part of its furniture, the books lying dispersed in heaps over the floor or on the massive table, at the side of which N---- was seated on the only chair left in the apartment. He was at first unconscious of my entrance. "My dear sir, this is kind indeed," he said as I advanced, struggling with his feelings, "but take a chair," and he glanced round the room with a bitter smile, as he observed there was none, "my friends are kind you see, they think chairs are useless things...." The loss of his land affected him more than I can describe. He had been brought up upon it, and it had become as it were part and parcel of himself; it was not an ordinary loss. The noise and bustle in the house and sundry interruptions from inquisitive eyes, warned us, as N---- said, that "we must jog." As we were rising, I accidentally inquired whether he had received his letters that morning. "Good God!" he exclaimed, "I totally forgot, and poor Andrew I fancy is too much occupied in bemoaning the fate of the horses, to have thought of it; but we can get them when I return with you this afternoon." "Delays are dangerous," I replied, "we will not throw a chance away." We hastened to the stable, and I despatched the servant on my own horse, with the utmost expedition to the post-office at ----. N---- sauntered through a private path in the shrubbery towards the entrance of the grounds, and I made my way through the careless throng, who had no thought what their own fate might be perhaps to-morrow--to Mr. Nibble, and urged him to delay the sale for an hour, but he said it was impossible, he would not hurry it for half an hour or so, but that they were already pressed for time. The landed property was first to be brought to the hammer. I mechanically followed the steps of N----, and when I overtook him, we saw through a break in the wood, from the increased density of the mob and the elevation of the auctioneer, that the sale was commencing.