weet food,
Enriched by all I see!

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

True Tales of the Year 1806.

II.--THE OLD ROSEWOOD ARMCHAIR.

On a cold winter's afternoon, in the year 1806, the little crowd that
had been attending a sale of furniture at the chief auctioneer's in
Wolverhampton was slowly melting away, for the few lots still left to be
sold mostly consisted of worn-out saucepans, broken towel-rails, and
some shabby chairs, and such-like worthless articles.

Very poor people, however, cannot be too fastidious, and a few buyers
still remained who were glad to bid for such things, and amongst these
people was a respectable-looking widow, in threadbare mourning, with a
boy of about thirteen years old by her side.

'Lot 213!' said the auctioneer, with a yawn; for the excitement of the
sale was over, and he did not waste professional jokes except on
well-to-do hearers. 'Rosewood armchair, upholstered in best wool damask!
Now, then, what offers?'

His assistant meanwhile had hoisted on to the table the very shabbiest
chair that had ever occupied so prominent a position! No doubt it might
once have been a good piece of furniture, but now the rosewood was so
encrusted with dirt that it required much scrutiny to say what the wood
really was; and, as for the 'best wool damask,' that must have existed
only in the auctioneer's imagination, for the chair looked as if it were
upholstered in a ragged, colourless canvas, with the stuffing sticking
through in numberless places.

Some of the little audience laughed and jeered as the chair was placed
before them, and one man said, derisively, that 'it wasn't worth
breaking up for firewood.'

The little widow's eyes, however, brightened, and she whispered to the
boy, 'That's the chair I told you of. I saw it yesterday. I could clean
it up, and make it comfortable for your grandfather. I can't bear to see
him sitting on that hard chair of his, with his rheumatism and all. But
I'm afraid it will go for more than I have.' And she clutched the
leather bag, with its solitary half-crown, more firmly in her hand.

'It's a big chair,' said the boy; 'but it's all to pieces, mother.'

'I could settle it, if only I get it,' said the widow, anxiously, still
looking at the chair.

'Now! What offers?' repeated the auctioneer, looking impatiently round.
'Come, make a bid! A good rosewood chair, upholstered in damask.'

There was silence. No one seemed to want such a wretched piece of