to bed last night."

The Old Lady turned and went into the house abruptly. This was
dreadful. Sylvia must go to that party--she MUST. But how
was it to be managed? Through the Old Lady's brain passed wild
thoughts of her mother's silk dresses. But none of them would
be suitable, even if there were time to make one over. Never
had the Old Lady so bitterly regretted her vanished wealth.

"I've only two dollars in the house," she said, "and I've got
to live on that till the next day the egg pedlar comes round.
Is there anything I can sell--ANYTHING? Yes, yes, the grape jug!"

Up to this time, the Old Lady would as soon have thought of
trying to sell her head as the grape jug. The grape jug was
two hundred years old and had been in the Lloyd family ever
since it was a jug at all. It was a big, pot-bellied affair,
festooned with pink-gilt grapes, and with a verse of poetry
printed on one side, and it had been given as a wedding
present to the Old Lady's great-grandmother. As long as the
Old Lady could remember it had sat on the top shelf in the
cupboard in the sitting-room wall, far too precious ever to be
used.

Two years before, a woman who collected old china had explored
Spencervale, and, getting word of the grape jug, had boldly
invaded the old Lloyd place and offered to buy it. She never,
to her dying day, forgot the reception the Old Lady gave her;
but, being wise in her day and generation, she left her card,
saying that if Miss Lloyd ever changed her mind about selling