ugh's face, and his voice trembled as he
asked:

"Who bought him?"

"Harney, in course, bought him for five-fifty. I tells you they runs him
up, somebody did, and once, when he stood at four hundred and fifty, and
I thought the auction was going to say 'Gone,' I bids myself."

"You!" and Hugh stared blankly at him.

"I know it wan't manners, but it came out 'fore I thought, and Harney,
he hits me a cuff, and tells me to hush my jaw. He got paid, though, for
jes' then a voice I hadn't hearn afore, a wee voice like a girl's, calls
out five hundred, and ole Harney turn black as tar. 'Who's that?' he
said, pushin' inter the crowd, and like a mad dog yelled out five-fifty,
and then he set to cussin' who 'twas biddin' ag'in him. I hearn them
'round me say, 'That fetches it. Rocket's a goner,' when I flung the
halter in Harney's ugly face, and came off home to tell you. Poor Mas'r,
you is gwine to faint," and the well-meaning, but rather impudent Claib,
sprang forward in time to catch and hold his young master, who otherwise
might have fallen to the floor.

Hugh had borne much that day. The sudden hope that Alice might be won,
followed so soon by the certainty that she could not, had shaken his
nerves and tried his strength cruelly, while the story Claib had told
unmanned him entirely, and this it was which made him grow so cold and
faint, reeling in his chair, and leaning gladly for support against the
sturdy Claib, who led him to the bed, and then went in quest of Adah.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SALE

There was a crowd of people out that day to attend the sale of Colonel
Tiffton's household effects. Even fair ladies, too, came in their
carriages, holding high their aristocratic skirts as they threaded their
way through the rooms where piles of carpeting and furniture of various
kinds lay awaiting the shrill voice and hammer of the auctioneer, a
portly little man, who felt more for the family than his appearance
would indicate.

There had been a long talk that morning between himself and a young
lady, a stranger to him, whose wondrous beauty had thrilled his heart
just as it did every heart beating beneath a male's attire. The lady had
seemed a little worried, as she talked, casting anxious glances up the
Lexington turnpike, and asking several times when the Lexington cars
were due.

"It shan't make no difference. I'll take your word," the auctioneer had
said in reply to some doubts expressed by her. "I'd trust