But after a few weeks came tales that atrophied belief—tales corroborated by a printed catalogue and by certain deposits of money in our bank to the account of Miss Caroline. That six wretched chairs, plain to ugliness, had sold for three hundred dollars spread consternation. The plain old sideboard for a hundred and ten dollars only fed the flames. But there had been sold what the catalogue described as "A Colonial sofa with carved dolphin arms, winged claw feet, and carved back" for two hundred and ten dollars, and after that the emotions aroused in Little Arcady were difficult to classify. Upon that very sofa most of the ladies of Little Arcady had sat to pity Miss Caroline for being "lumbered" with it. Again, a "Colonial highboy, hooded," recalled as an especially awkward thing, and "five mahogany side chairs" had gone for three hundred and eighty dollars. A "Heppelwhite mahogany armchair," remembered for its faded red satin, had veritably brought one hundred and sixty dollars; and a carved rosewood screen, said to be of Empire design, but a shabby thing, had sold astonishingly for ninety dollars. A "Hogarth chair-back settee" for two hundred and ten dollars, and "four Hogarth side chairs" for three hundred and fifteen dollars only darkened our visions still further. Some of us had known that Hogarth was an artist, but not that he had found time from his drawing to make furniture. Of Heppelwhite we had heard not at all, although twelve arm-chairs said to be his had been by some one thought to be worth around seven hundred dollars. Nor of any Sheraton did we know, though one of his sideboards and a "pair of Sheraton knife urns" fetched the incredible sum of five hundred and fifty dollars. Chippendale was another name unfamiliar in Slocum County, but Chippendale, it seemed, had once made a wing book-case which was now worth two hundred and forty dollars of some enthusiast's money. After that a Chippendale settee for a hundred and forty dollars and an "Empire table with 1830 base" for ninety-three dollars seemed the merest trifles of this insane outbreak.
The amount netted by the late owner of these things was reported with various exaggerations, which I never saw any good reason to correct. As I have said, the thing was, and promises to remain forever in Little Arcady, a phenomenon to be explained by no known natural laws. For a long time our ladies were too aghast even to marvel at it intelligibly. When Aunt Delia McCormick in my hearing said, "Well, now, what a world this is!" and Mrs. Westley Keyts answered, "That's very true!" I knew they referred to the Lansdale furniture. It was typical of the prevailing stupefaction.
"It seems that a collector may be a gentleman," said Miss Caroline, "but Mr. Cohen wasn't even a collector!"
Then I told her the considerable sum now to her credit. She drew a long breath and said, "Now!" and Clem, who stood by, almost cried, "Now, Little Miss!"
"THE BOOK OF LITTLE MISS."
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE TIME OF DREAMS
I had Clem to myself for a time. Little Miss, it seemed, was not yet rugged enough for travel into the far Little Country. Nor was she at once to be convinced that she might safely leave her work. I suspect that she had found cause in the past to rank her mother with Clem as a weigher and disburser of moneys. I noticed that she chose to accept Miss Caroline's earliest letters about their good fortune with a sort of half-tolerant attention, as an elder listens to the wonder-tales of an imaginative child, or as I had long listened to Clem's own dreamy-eyed recital of the profits already his from "brillions" of chickens not yet come even to the egg-stage of their careers.
Not until Miss Caroline had ceased from large and beauteous phrases about "the great good fortune that has befallen us in the strangest manner"—not until she descended to actual, dumfounding figures with powerful little dollar-marks back of them, did her daughter seem to permit herself the sweet alarms of hope. Even in that moment she did not forget that she knew her own mother, for she took the precaution to elicit a confirmatory letter from her mother's attorney, under guise of thanking him for the friendly interest he had "ever manifested" in the welfare of the Lansdales.