“She is there,” cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when his mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should take her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule, he was struck by something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full of people all busily talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas and chairs, covered for a boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that in the broad light of day they looked faded. A mirror, framed in silver, and ornamented with cupids, was leaning against one of the stone pillars; a jardinière without flowers, and curtains that had been taken down and thrown over a chair, were near by. Several women richly dressed were talking together of the merits of a crystal chandelier.
Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that said,—
“A child’s bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!”
And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough men. He wished to exclaim,
“The bed is mine—my very own—I will not have it touched;” but a certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
“What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?”
It was Constant, his mother’s maid—Constant, in her Sunday dress, wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
“Where is mamma?” asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so pitiful and troubled that the woman’s heart was touched.
“Your mother is not here, my poor child,” she said.
“But where is she? And what are all these people doing?”