for
herself." Miss Diana would never learn the economy which is content to
be comfortable while a neighbor is in need. "And, Unavella, if you
please, you might say I am not receiving callers this afternoon. I am
afraid it is not very hospitable, but I feel as if I must be alone. This
has been rather a sudden shock to me."

"You, you--angul!" exclaimed Unavella, as soon as she had regained the
privacy of her kitchen, while a briny crystal of genuine affection
rolled down her cheek and splashed unceremoniously into the gravy.

Up-stairs in her pretty chamber Miss Diana sat and thought. Ruin and
starvation. Was that what it meant? She had seen the words in print
often but they seemed different now. Ruin meant a giving up and going
out, while the auctioneer's hammer smote upon one's heart with cruel
blows, and one could not see to say farewell because one's eyes were
full of tears. It would not be starvation--of the body. She must be
thankful for that. The house and grounds were in a good locality and she
had refused several handsome offers for them during the past year.

She caught her breath a little as she thought of the wide stretching
field where her dainty Jersey was feeding, with its cluster of trees in
one corner, under which a brook babbled joyously as it danced on its way
to the river; the pretty barn with its pigeon-house where her
snow-white fantails craned their imperious heads; the wide porch with
its flower drapery, where she sat and read or worked with her pet
spaniel at her feet, and where her friends loved to gather through the
summer afternoons and chat over the early supper before they went back
to the city's grime and stir.

Then in thought she entered the house. The room which had been her
father's and the library which held his books. Could she sell those! She
shivered, as in imagination she heard the careless inventory of the
auctioneer. She had never attended an auction except once, and then she
had hurried away, for it seemed to her the pictured faces were misty
with tears and she fancied the draperies sighed, as they waved in the
wind which swept through the gaping windows. There were the engravings
which she loved and the pictures her father had brought with him from
Europe, and the rare old china and her mother's silver service, and her
store of delicate napery and household linen; while every table and
chair had a story and the very walls of each room were dear. Had she
been making idols o