“Shust as you like, my goot voman,” Mr. Swartz remarked, shrugging his shoulders.  “If you vant at mine price, all veil and goot; if not, you can leave it alone.  I only puy te piece of furniture to accommodate you, and you should pe tankful.”

“I suppose I will be obliged to take your price,” replied Mrs. Wentworth, “although I believe I could get more for it, did I know any one in town who purchased such things.”

He made no reply, but calling his clerk ordered him to bring forty dollars from the safe.  The clerk having brought the money retired, and left them alone again.

“Vere is te pedstead?” asked Swartz.

“It is at home,” Mrs. Wentworth replied.

“Den you must pring it round here before I can pay for it,” he observed.

“I am in want of the money now to buy bread,” she answered.  “If you will pay me and let your clerk follow with a dray, I would return home immediately and have the bedstead taken down and sent to you.”

Mr. Swartz called the clerk again, and ordered him to bring a dray to the front of the store.  The clerk did as he was requested, and soon after returned with the intelligence that the dray was ready.

“Do you follow dis voman to her house, and she vill give you a pedstead.  Bring it down here,” and then he added, speaking to the clerk who had not yet left the room:  “Vat does te trayman sharge.”

“One dollar and a half,” was the reply.

Taking up the forty dollars which had been previously brought to him, Mr. Swartz counted out thirty-eight and a half dollars, and handed them to Mrs. Wentworth.

“De von tollar and a half out ish to pay for te trayage,” he remarked as she received the money.

She made no reply, but left the room followed by the clerk, when, with the drayman, they soon arrived at her room.  The bedstead was soon taken down and removed to Mr. Swartz’s store.

“Sharge one huntred tollars for dat pedstead,” he remarked to his clerk as soon as it had arrived.

While he was rejoicing at the good speculation he had made, the soldier’s wife sat on a box in her room feeding her half famished children.  The room was now utterly destitute of furniture, but the heart of the mother rejoiced at the knowledge that for a couple of weeks longer her children would have food.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

DR. HUMPHRIES BUYS A SLAVE AND BRINGS HOME NEWS.

A few days after Mrs. Wentworth had sold her last piece of furniture, Dr. Humphries was walking along one of the principal streets in Jackson when he was stopped by a crowd that had gathered in front of an auction mart.  On walking up he learned that it was a sheriff’s sale of a “likely young negro girl.”  Remembering that Emma had requested him to purchase a girl as a waiting maid for her, he examined the slave and found her in all respects the kind of house servant he desired.  Going up to the auctioneer who had just mounted a bench for the purpose of selling the slave, he enquired where she had come from.  The auctioneer responded by handing the doctor a small hand bill setting forth the sale.  After reading it he walked up to the slave and commenced to question her.