“Well, that’s the way it struck me—at first,” acquiesced Mr. Bellows; “but the way she put it up t’ me kind of won me over. She’s a takin’ sort of girl, kind o’ good-lookin’, an’ innercent. W’y, Lord bless you, she’s no more idee of the way a man—like you, for instance—might look at it than a child. She wants to work out—for a matter o’ four or five years, she says; an’ she thinks she c’n get some fool woman to bid twelve hunderd dollars spot cash fer bein’ sure of a hired girl all that time—‘W’y,’ I says to her, ‘you might up an’ die,’ ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘so might a horse; but folks hes to hev horses!’ I tell you she’s cute an’ bright, an’ I’m goin’ to sell her to the highest bidder, same’s I agreed to.” Jarvis was silent for a long minute, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the miscellaneous collection of shabby and broken furniture in the rear of the shop. “Is it to be a public sale?” he asked coolly. “Well, as t’ that, I can’t rightly tell you. I left the advertisin’ o’ the goods, an’ the date o’ sale to the young lady. I reelly hope you will call it off. I s’pose you c’n easy fix things up so ’t she——” “Did she ask you to tell me this?” demanded Jarvis suddenly. “Tell me the facts.” “Did she ask me—to tell you?” echoed Mr. Bellows wonderingly. “You bet she didn’t! You wasn’t named betwixt us. I asked her who held the lien on her prop’ty, an’ she didn’t answer. Thought it was none o’ my business, likely. I suspicioned it was you, though. You get most of ’em around these parts.” Jarvis made no reply. He closed the red leather book, slipped it into an inside pocket, then deliberately drew on his driving gloves. “Can you tell me the date of this—this sale?” he asked. “What you want t’ know for? Thinkin’ of puttin’ in a bid?” chuckled Mr. Bellows. Jarvis gave him a terrible look. “I’d advise you to keep still about this. Don’t attempt to interest anyone else in Miss Preston’s affairs. Do you hear?” “I ain’t deef,” responded Mr. Bellows in an aggrieved voice. “‘N’ I don’t know’s I see what business ’tis of yours, anyhow. Mebbe she’ll get the money an’ pay you. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if she did. She’s bound she will, an’ where there’s a will there’s a way, I’ve heard tell.” “The date, man; give me the date!” “Seein’ I’ve told you so much, I s’pose you might as well know; the sale’s set for the eighteenth.” “Where?” “At her house.” “And you’re actually going to—— No; she’ll never do it. She won’t be able to bring herself to it.” “Wall, I’ll bet you ten dollars she will; d’ye take me?” Jarvis turned without another word and left the place. He suddenly felt the need of the outdoor air. Barbara’s desperate expedient convinced him as no words of hers could have done of the hopelessness of his case. “She hates me,” he told himself; and for the first time he looked within for a reason for her aversion.