“These two important vandoos are under the management of Joshua Hanks, licensed auctioneer and attorney for the Executors. “Oaklands, March, 19—.” “Here is something, I’m sure, that will interest Mrs. Terry,” said Evan, who had followed me; “naturally she will not care for the house, for it is low and rambling, but it will be a chance to go to an auction sale conducted with strict hill-country etiquette, unless I’m mistaken, for even the leading word, ‘Vendue,’ is spelled according to the local pronunciation. It is always as good as a play to hear Hanks conduct a sale, he is all commercial bathos. Don’t you remember going with me, Barbara, to an auction on the Ridge where some one complained that a certain cow was damaged, and not sound as represented because she had a broken horn, and Hanks gave a thrilling account of how the horn was broken and tried to prove added value from the happening?” “But, father,” I asked, “why is the Dearborn farm to be sold? I thought Miss Sallie had pinched and denied herself even ordinary comforts the last half of her life to leave the place, with a little sum for keeping it up, to some grandnephews.” “It is one of the many cases that come to us all, and especially into the life of a country doctor, that prove how foolish it is for people to make plans for those who come after them, or pinch or save beyond the ordinary bounds of prudence,” answered father. “I knew Sallie Dearborn for upwards of fifty years. The Lord intended her for a woman to love and be loved, yet a streak of obstinate martyrdom from first to last made her lose her chances of happiness one after another, because to accept them would interfere with some elaborate and prudent plan she had made either for indefinite posterity, or more often merely on general principles of thrift. “After the old people died, they say that Sallie had a chance to marry a promising young fellow and go out into the world, but to have withdrawn her interest in the land at that time would have hindered her two brothers, and after a controversy that no one understood, the lover went away. “Presently one brother died, and the other, having married a delicate wife, broke away from the farm to go to the southwest. For years Sallie toiled and scrimped to pay him his portion and keep the place of five generations ‘in the family.’ She has even paid her farmer Becker and his wife with _post obits_, that she might leave a money equivalent of the farm in the bank so that the two nephews might have equal portions without selling the homestead and furnishings. The first choice going to the elder, with many directions as to the handing of it down being left to the one who takes it and its quaint furnishings. “Now, as it turns out, neither man wishes the farm or fixings, nor has sufficient interest in their fate even to bring them here to oversee affairs, and everything available is to be sold without reserve and turned into money!