The Veteran
them with the thought of being sold up and turned out of the house, she decided to sell the round mahogany table and other things out of the sitting-room. Nearly all the furniture that was left in the house now belonged to her, and had formed her home before her husband died at the war.
Mr Didlum, the furniture dealer, called to see the various articles, and looked at them with open contempt. Five shillings was the very most he could think of giving for the table, and even then he doubted whether he would ever get his money back. Eventually he gave her thirty shillings for the table, the overmantel, the easy-chair, three other chairs and the two best pictures, one a large steel engraving of 'The Good Samaritan,' and the other 'Christ Blessing Little Children.'
He paid the money at once. Half-an-hour afterwards the van came to take the things away, and when they were gone Mary Linden sank down on the hearthrug in the wrecked room and sobbed as if her heart would break.
This was the first of several similar transactions. Slowly, piece by piece, in order to buy food and to pay the rent, the furniture was sold. Every time Didlum came he affected to be doing them a very great favour by buying the things at all. He did not want them; business was so bad it might be years before he could sell them again; and so on. Once or twice he asked Mary if she did not want to sell the clock—the one that her late husband had made for his mother; but Mary shrank from the thought of selling this, until at last there was nothing else left that Didlum would buy, and one week, when she was too ill to do her needlework, it had to go. Didlum gave them ten shillings for it.
Mary had expected the old woman to be heartbroken at parting with this clock, but she was surprised to see her almost indifferent. The truth was that lately both the old people seemed stunned and incapable of taking an intelligent interest in what was happening around them.
From time to time nearly all their other possessions, things of inferior value that Didlum would not look at, were sold at small second-hand shops in back streets or pledged at the pawnbroker's. The feather pillows, sheets and blankets, bits of carpet or oilcloth, and as much of their clothing as was saleable or pawnable.
They felt the loss of the bedclothes more than anything
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