matter; in fact, the shine would be all the better, showing they had been worn.  They’d label ’em ‘Col.  Crompton’s,’ and hang them up with the valuables,—­meaning Widow Biggs’s warming-pan and foot-stove, and Widow Allen’s bonnet, and that other old woman’s quill wheel, I dare say.  Think of it, Peter.  My coat and trousers!  She asked for a coat, too,—­strung on a line with warming-pans and quill wheels and bonnets a hundred years old, and the Lord only knows what else, and labelled ’Col.  Crompton.’  If it had been anybody but Ruby Ann, I’d turned her from the room.  I thought she had more sense,—­upon my soul, I did!  What did she get out of you?”

“Nothing much but some old clothes and shoes and a boot-jack; she thought a good deal of that,” Peter said, and with a sniff of contempt the Colonel replied, “Old clothes and a boot-jack; and what is Mrs. Amy sending?  Half the attic, I should think from the noise they make up there.”

Hesitating a moment Peter said, “She is giving the fancy gowns she used to wear, with the tops of the waists and bottoms of the sleeves cut off.  She says they are hateful to her.”

The Colonel guessed what she meant, and replied, “Quite right; Rummage and rag-bags good places for them; but I say, Peter, I won’t have them strung up with warming-pans and quill wheels and my trousers.  You must stop it.  Do you hear?”

“I didn’t know your trousers were going,” Peter suggested, and the Colonel answered curtly, “Who said they were, you blockhead?  They are not going unless Ruby gets them in the night.  Upon my soul, she is equal to it.  I think I shall put them under my pillow.  It is Mrs. Amy’s dresses I mean.  What else is she going to send?”

“You remember the doll house you bought her when she was a little girl?” Peter said.

“Good thunder, yes!  Will she give that away?” the Colonel asked, with something in his tone which was more than surprise.

It hurt him that Amy should be willing to part with the doll house.  She must be queerer than usual, and he thought of the Harris blood.  Suddenly he remembered Mandy Ann and Judy, and asked if she was going to give them to the Rummage.

“She means to.  Yes, sir.  They go with the doll house, one as mistress, the other as maid.  I heard her say so.  They are downstairs now,” was Peter’s reply.

The Colonel’s countenance fell, and there was an awful twinge in his foot, but he didn’t mind it.  His thoughts flew back to the palmetto clearing, where he first saw the little girl and Judy.  Then they travelled on to Savannah and the store where he bought Mandy Ann, and so on through the different phases of Amy’s childhood, and he was surprised to find how unwilling he was to part with what had been so intimately associated with years which, on the whole, had been happy, although at times a little stormy.  And Amy was going to send them to a Rummage Sale!

“I may be a weak old fool, but I won’t have them sold down there with quill wheels and warming-pans!” he thought.