"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 pain of her trampled pride, sold the grape
jug and went away, believing that her great-grandmother must
have turned over in her grave at the moment of the transaction.
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