ew plain bits of furniture: why
should he? and he had been away so long, that he had lost his interest
in the neighbours. Perhaps this might come back to him again as he
grew older; but now he moved about among them, in his handsome but
somewhat flashy clothes, with a look that told me he felt conscious of
his superior station in life. I did not altogether like his looks,
though somebody said admiringly, as he went by, "They say he's worth as
much as thirty thousand dollars a'ready. He's smart as a whip."

But, while I did not wonder at the son's wishing his mother to go away,
I also did not wonder at her being unwilling to leave the dull little
house where she had spent so much of her life. I was afraid no other
house in the world would ever seem like home to her: she was a part of
the old place: she had worn the doors smooth by the touch of her hands,
and she had scrubbed the floors, and walked over them, until the knots
stood up high in the pine boards. The old clock had been unscrewed
from the wall, and stood on a table; and when I heard its loud and
anxious tick, my first thought was one of pity for the poor thing, for
fear it might be homesick, like its mistress. When I went out again, I
was very sorry for old Mrs. Wallis; she looked so worried and excited,
and as if this new turn of affairs in her life was too strange and
unnatural; it bewildered her, and she could not understand it; she only
knew every thing was going to be different.

Georgie was by himself, as usual, looking grave and intent. He had
gone aloft on the wheel of a clumsy great ox-cart in which some of the
men had come to the auction, and he was looking over people's heads,
and seeing every thing that was sold. I saw he was not ready to come
away, so I was not in a hurry. I heard Mrs. Wallis say to one of her
friends, "You just go in and take that rug with the flowers on't, and
go and put it in your wagon. It's right beside my chest that's packed
ready to go. John told me to give away any thing I had a mind to. He
don't care nothing about the money. I hooked that rug four year ago;
it's most new; the red of the roses was made out of a dress of
Miranda's. I kept it a good while after she died; but it's no us to
let it lay. I've given a good deal to my sister Stiles: she was over
here helping me yesterday. There! it's all come upon me so sudden; I
s'pose I shall wish, after I get away, that I had done things
different; but, after I