shop.'

With that he laughed, and I flounced out of the shop, my cheeks
flaming and my heart going like an eight-day clock. I was so
flustered I didn't notice that some one came out of the shop after
me, and I had walked a dozen yards down the street before I saw that
some one was alongside of me and saying something to me.

It was another old gentleman--at least, not so old as Mr. Aked,--and
I remembered now having seen him at the back of the shop. He was
taking off his hat, as polite as you please.

'You're quite overcome,' he said, 'and no wonder. Come and have a
little dinner with me quietly somewhere, and tell me all about it.'

'I don't want any dinner,' I said; 'I want to go and drown myself,
for it's all over, and I've nothing more to look for. My brother
Harry will have the farm, and I shan't get a penny of aunt's money.
Why couldn't they have made plenty of the ugly old basins while they
were about it?'

'Come and have some dinner,' the old gentleman said again, 'and
perhaps I can help you. I have a basin just like that.'

So I did. We went to some place where there were a lot of little
tables and waiters in black clothes; and we had a nice dinner, and I
did feel better for it, and when we had come to the cheese, I told
him exactly what had happened; and he leaned his head on his hands,
and he thought, and thought, and presently he said--

'Do you think your aunt would sell any of her china?'

'That I'm downright sure she wouldn't,' I said; 'so it's no good
your asking.'

'Well, you see, your aunt won't be down for three or four days yet.
You give me your address, and I'll write and tell you if I think of
anything.'

And with that he paid the bill and had a cab called, and put me in
it and paid the driver, and I went along home.

I didn't sleep much that night, and next day I was thinking all
sermon-time of whatever I could do, for it wasn't in nature that my
aunt would not find me out before another two days was over my head;
and she had never been so nice and kind, and had even gone so far as
to say--

'Whoever my money's left to, Jane, will be bound not to part with my
china, nor my old chairs and presses. Don't you forget, my child.
It's all written in black and white, and if the person my money's
left to sells these old things, my money goes along too.'

There was no letter on Monday morning, and I was up to my elbows in
the suds, doing aunt's bit of washing for her, when I heard a step