As we stood in the doorway, a flood of sunlight, coming in through the small, iridescent window-panes, gilded the dust that lay upon everything and lent warmth to the quaint buff wall-paper, festooned with loops of bright flowers and birds of paradise; a brave paper in its day and one that had faded with dignity. “I don’t know quite what there is about this room,” whispered Mrs. Terry, “but bare as it is and cold, it seems familiar and somehow more homelike to me than any other I have ever seen; I wonder could I have lived in it in dreams?” Before I could answer, one of the swift changes passed over her, and stepping forward, she said in the perfectly clear, unemotional voice of a business man, “Mr. Hanks, as it is growing late and I must go, would you object to selling the contents of this room as it stands? Wall-paper and all, if it is possible to get it off?” I was amazed and a little worried, for I knew nothing of the length of Mrs. Terry’s purse. The country folks gasped and whispered among themselves; they did not wish to be cheated out of a moment’s excitement. The dealers began a series of mental calculations, but no real objection being made, Mr. Hanks stroked his chin a moment, muttered something about its being possible that the wall paper being fastened to the house might be real estate, and then said, “The bed must be a separate lot, the desk as is known is not for the sale, but the rest of the fittings I will put up in bulk ‘as is,’ madam, which is a learned and professional term you must know for the way they seem to be to the casual eye, not what perhaps the brush of fancy might paint them.” The green porcupine lady shut her mouth with the snap of a turtle, murmuring something about the widow’s mite being disdained, as she saw that both the Bible, and the basket containing the thimble that was suspected of being gold, would vanish from her horizon. Of course I was in no way responsible for Mrs. Terry, yet for one who confessed to being on the eve of running away, to buy a wagon load of furniture seemed hardly rational. When, ten minutes later, Mr. Hanks, after selling the bed and contents of the room for one hundred and fifty dollars, was fairly beaming at his success, and I realized that the furniture must be removed within two days, my heart sank. Not so Mrs. Terry’s; after giving Hanks a very substantial deposit upon her purchase, she tucked the Bible under one arm, and hugging the basket to her breast, made ready to go. That evening, after supper, she spread Bible, basket, and herself upon the rug before the den fire and began examining the contents of the old work-basket as a child does a picture puzzle, saying naïvely, “It’s no harm to look at the things before I bury them,” whereat Evan heaved a sigh, and I knew that he was mentally weighing the stability of Terry Donelly’s marriage, though at the same time his eyes twinkled with amusement.