hould chance to be in need, say, of a new
set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse
a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit,
which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original
debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business,
though there were occasional "bargains" in it.

In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life
was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand
she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again
exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she
fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished
almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had
not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked
up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping.

But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel
wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she
had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of
the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the
necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such
clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light
broke in upon him.

"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been
changed."

So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late.

"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a
nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs.
Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.'
I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like
that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can
behave so!"

Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this
sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and
given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt
Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was
already active in her next remark,--

"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we
may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated
axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is
always some truth in human misery.

When Henry h