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“O my Lord!” uttered Amanda, under her breath. Then she roused herself to the present exigency of comfort. “You come an’ set in the kitchen a spell,” she said, coaxingly, “an’ I’ll go an’ get the things back.”

Old Lady Green looked at her with that unquestioning trust which was the most pathetic accompaniment of her state. “You’ll git ’em back, ‘Mandy, won’t ye?” she repeated, smiling a little and wiping her eyes. “That’s a good gal! So’t we can tell what time ’tis.”

Amanda led her into the kitchen, and established her by the window. She shut the door of the denuded sitting-room, and, giving her courage no time to cool, ran across lots to the Blaisdells’, the hated money clasped tightly in her hand. The family was at supper, and the stranger with them, when she walked in at the kitchen door. She hurried up to her enemy, and laid the little roll of bills by his plate. Her cheeks were scarlet, her thin hair-flying.

“Here’s your money,” she said, in a strained, high voice, “an’ I want our things. You hadn’t ought to gone over there an’ talked over an old lady that–that–“

There she stopped. Amanda had never yet acknowledged that her mother was not in her “perfect mind.” Chapman took out a long pocket-book, and for a moment her courage stood at flood-tide; she thought he was about to accept the money and put it away. But no! He produced a slip of white paper and held it up before her. She bent forward and examined it,–a receipt signed by her mother’s shaking hand.

“But it ain’t right!” she cried, helpless in her dismay. “Cap’n Jabez, you speak to him! You know how ’tis about mother! She wouldn’t any more ha’ sold that clock than she’d ha’ sold–me!”

Captain Jabez looked at his plate in uncomfortable silence. He was a just man, but he hated to interfere.

“Well, there!” he said, at length, pushing his chair back to leave the table. “It don’t seem jestly right to me, but then he’s got the resate, an’ your mother signed it–an’ there ’tis!”

“An’ you won’t do anything?” cried Amanda, passionately, turning back to the stranger. “You mean to keep them things?”

He was honestly sorry for her, as the business man for the sentimentalist, but he had made a good bargain, and he held it sacred.

“I declare, I wish it hadn’t happened so,” he said, good-naturedly. “But the old lady’ll get over it. You buy her a nice bright little nickel clock that’ll strike the half-hours, and she’ll be tickled to death to watch it.”

Amanda turned away and walked out of the house.

“Here,” called Chapman, “come back and get your money!” But she hurried on. “Well, I’ll leave it with Captain Jabez,” he called again, “and you can come over and get it. I’m going in the morning, early.”

Amanda was passing the barn, and there, through the open door, she saw the old clock pathetically loaded on the light wagon, protected by burlap, and tied with ropes. The coverlets lay beside it. A sob rose in her throat, but her eyes were dry, and she hurried across lots home. At the back door she found Caleb unharnessing the horse. She had forgotten their misunderstanding in the present practical emergency.

“O Caleb,” she began, before she had reached him, “ma’am’s sold the clock an’ some coverlids, an’ I can’t get ’em back!”

“Cap’n Jabez said she had, this arternoon,” said Caleb, slowly, tying a trace. “I dunno’s the old lady’s to blame. Seem’s if she hadn’t ought to be left alone.”

“But how’m I goin’ to get ’em back?” persisted Amanda, coming close to him, her poor little face pinched and eager. “He jest showed me the receipt, all signed. How’m I goin’ to get the things, Caleb?”

“If he’s got the receipt, an’ the things an’ all, an’ she took the money, I dunno’s you can get ’em,” said Caleb, “unless you could prove in a court o’ law that she wa’n’t in her right mind. I dunno how that would work.”