the jug, she would find that she, the aforesaid collector, had
not changed hers about buying it. People who make a hobby of
heirloom china must meekly overlook snubs, and this particular
person had never seen anything she coveted so much as that
grape jug.

The Old Lady had torn the card to pieces; but she remembered
the name and address. She went to the cupboard and took down
the beloved jug.

"I never thought to part with it," she said wistfully, "but
Sylvia must have a dress, and there is no other way. And,
after all, when I'm gone, who would there be to have it?
Strangers would get it then--it might as well go to them now.
I'll have to go to town to-morrow morning, for there's no time
to lose if the party is Friday night. I haven't been to town
for ten years. I dread the thought of going, more than parting
with the jug. But for Sylvia's sake!"

It was all over Spencervale by the next morning that Old Lady
Lloyd had gone to town, carrying a carefully guarded box.
Everybody wondered why she went; most people supposed she had
become too frightened to keep her money in a black box below
her bed, when there had been two burglaries over at Carmody,
and had taken it to the bank.

The Old Lady sought out the address of the china collector,
trembling with fear that she might be dead or gone. But the
collector was there, very much alive, and as keenly anxious to
possess the grape jug as ever. The Old Lady, pallid with the