“Sold for five dollars to Thomas Walker, who will please walk up to the captain’s office and pay,” Mr. Bills said, handing the apron to Tom, who held it awkwardly, as if afraid of harming it.

“I guess it’s yourn,” he said, giving it to Jack, who knew as little what to do with it as Tom.

Ruby came to his aid and took it from him.  She had watched the performance with a great deal of interest, comprehending it perfectly and feeling in a way sorry for Eloise, whose lips quivered a little when she went up to her, and bending over her said, “You should feel complimented, but I’m afraid you are very tired.”

“Yes, very tired and warm.  I want to get into the fresh air,” Eloise said, shivering as if she were cold instead of warm.

Jack had gone to the cashier’s desk to pay for the apron, and Tom undertook the task of getting the wheel chair through the crowd, running against the people promiscuously, if they impeded his progress, and caring little whom he hit if he got Eloise safely outside the door.  The night was at its best, almost as light as day, as they emerged from the hot, close room, and Eloise drew long breaths of the cool air which blew up fom the sea, the sound of whose waves beating upon the shore could be heard even above the din of voices inside the building.  The auction was still going on, and Mr. Bills was doing his best, but the interest flagged with the sale of the apron and the breaking up of the group which had attracted so much attention.  Even Mrs. Biggs’s grandmother’s brass kettle, on which so many hopes were built, failed to create more than a ripple, as Mr. Bills rang changes upon it both with tongue and knuckles, and when his most eloquent appeals could not raise a higher bid than ten cents, it was withdrawn by the disgusted widow, who put it aside with her dish pan and towels and gown, and then went to find Tim to take them home.

Howard had been called by Ruby into the room where Amy’s dresses were lying in the boxes just as they came, and asked what they were to do with them.

“We could not offer them for sale, and she does not want them back,” she said.

“Send them to the Colonel.  She’ll never know it, and the chance is will never think of them again,” Howard said, and then hurried outside to where Eloise was still waiting and talking to Tom.

“That apron went first rate,” he said.  “You must have felt glad they thought so much of you, ’cause ’twas you and not the apron, though that was pretty enough.”

“Oh!” Eloise replied, drawing her ermine cape around her shoulders, “I don’t know whether I was glad or not.  I felt as if I were being sold to the highest bidder.”

“That’s so,” Tom said.  “It was something like it.  Ain’t you glad ’twas Mr. Harcourt bought you instead of t’other?”

Eloise laughed as she replied, “Why, Thomas, it was you who bought me!  Have you forgotten?”

She seemed so much in earnest that for a moment Tom thought she was, and said, “You ain’t so green as not to know that ‘twas Mr. Harcourt eggin’ me on,—­winkin’ to me when to raise, and tellin’ me to go high!  You are his’n, and I’m glad on’t!  I like him better than t’other; ain’t so big feelin’.  Here they come, both on ’em.”