The next thing she wanted was a set of oak chairs.

They went up to twenty-eight pounds; then she said, “I shall give no more, sir.”

“Better not lose them,” said the agent; “they are a great bargain;” and bid another pound for her on his own responsibility.

They were still run up, and Rosa peremptorily refused to give any more.  She lost them, accordingly, by good luck.  Her faithful broker looked blank; so did the proprietor.

But, as the sale proceeded, she being young, the competition, though most of it sham, being artful and exciting, and the traitor she employed constantly puffing every article, she was drawn in to wishing for things, and bidding by her feelings.

Then her traitor played a game that has been played a hundred times, and the perpetrators never once lynched, as they ought to be, on the spot.  He signalled a confederate with a hooked nose; the Jew rascal bid against the Christian scoundrel, and so they ran up the more enticing things to twice their value under the hammer.

Rosa got flushed, and her eye gleamed like a gambler’s, and she bought away like wildfire.  In which sport she caught sight of an old gentleman, with little black eyes that kept twinkling at her.

She complained of these eyes to Mrs. Cole.  “Why does he twinkle so?  I can see it is at me.  I am doing something foolish—­I know I am.”

Mrs. Cole turned, and fixed a haughty stare on the old gentleman.  Would you believe it? instead of sinking through the floor, he sat his ground, and retorted with a cold, clear grin.

But now, whenever Rosa’s agent bid for her, and the other man of straw against him, the black eyes twinkled, and Rosa’s courage began to ooze away.  At last she said, “That is enough for one day.  I shall go.  Who could bear those eyes?”

The broker took her address; so did the auctioneer’s clerk.  The auctioneer asked her for no deposit; her beautiful, innocent, and high-bred face was enough for a man who was always reading faces, and interpreting them.

And so they retired.

But this charming sex is like that same auctioneer’s hammer, it cannot go abruptly.  It is always going—­going—­going—­a long time before it is gone.  I think it would perhaps loiter at the door of a jail, with the order of release in its hand, after six years’ confinement.  Getting up to go quenches in it the desire to go.  So these ladies having got up to go, turned and lingered, and hung fire so long, that at last another set of oak chairs came up.  “Oh!  I must see what these go for,” said Rosa, at the door.

The bidding was mighty languid now Rosa’s broker was not stimulating it; and the auctioneer was just knocking down twelve chairs—­oak and leather—­and two arm-chairs, for twenty pounds, when, casting his eyes around, he caught sight of Rosa looking at him rather excited.  He looked inquiringly at her.  She nodded slightly; he knocked them down to her at twenty guineas, and they were really a great bargain.