place to the enthusiastic comment of such men as Wilton Ellsworth, Fletcher Norton, Gordon Strake—­architects and art dealers whose judgment and taste were considered important in Philadelphia.  All of the lovely things by which he had set great store—­small bronzes, representative of the best period of the Italian Renaissance; bits of Venetian glass which he had collected with great care—­a full curio case; statues by Powers, Hosmer, and Thorwaldsen—­things which would be smiled at thirty years later, but which were of high value then; all of his pictures by representative American painters from Gilbert to Eastman Johnson, together with a few specimens of the current French and English schools, went for a song.  Art judgment in Philadelphia at this time was not exceedingly high; and some of the pictures, for lack of appreciative understanding, were disposed of at much too low a figure.  Strake, Norton, and Ellsworth were all present and bought liberally.  Senator Simpson, Mollenhauer, and Strobik came to see what they could see.  The small-fry politicians were there, en masse.  But Simpson, calm judge of good art, secured practically the best of all that was offered.  To him went the curio case of Venetian glass; one pair of tall blue-and-white Mohammedan cylindrical vases; fourteen examples of Chinese jade, including several artists’ water-dishes and a pierced window-screen of the faintest tinge of green.  To Mollenhauer went the furniture and decorations of the entry-hall and reception-room of Henry Cowperwood’s house, and to Edward Strobik two of Cowperwood’s bird’s-eye maple bedroom suites for the most modest of prices.  Adam Davis was present and secured the secretaire of buhl which the elder Cowperwood prized so highly.  To Fletcher Norton went the four Greek vases—­a kylix, a water-jar, and two amphorae—­which he had sold to Cowperwood and which he valued highly.  Various objects of art, including a Sevres dinner set, a Gobelin tapestry, Barye bronzes and pictures by Detaille, Fortuny, and George Inness, went to Walter Leigh, Arthur Rivers, Joseph Zimmerman, Judge Kitchen, Harper Steger, Terrence Relihan, Trenor Drake, Mr. and Mrs. Simeon Jones, W. C. Davison, Frewen Kasson, Fletcher Norton, and Judge Rafalsky.

Within four days after the sale began the two houses were bare of their contents.  Even the objects in the house at 931 North Tenth Street had been withdrawn from storage where they had been placed at the time it was deemed advisable to close this institution, and placed on sale with the other objects in the two homes.  It was at this time that the senior Cowperwoods first learned of something which seemed to indicate a mystery which had existed in connection with their son and his wife.  No one of all the Cowperwoods was present during all this gloomy distribution; and Aileen, reading of the disposition of all the wares, and knowing their value to Cowperwood, to say nothing of their charm for her, was greatly depressed; yet she was not long despondent, for she was convinced that Cowperwood would some day regain his liberty and attain a position of even greater significance in the financial world.  She could not have said why but she was sure of it.