"Missus," said the girl, handing me a written

paper, "'as put down the lowest she'll take, an'
if you don't like that amount, p'raps, she ses,
you'll make a offer."

"Isn't your mistress at home, then?" I
asked.

"Oh, yes," replied the girl; "but she never
comes into this room, and never will until that
pianny's moved out of it."

"Indeed!" I observed.

"No, sir," continued the girl, "becos you see
it belonged to Miss Mariar, who was the
fav'rite child."

"It looks very new," I answered, "as if the
child hadn't used it much."

"Lor' bless you, sir!" returned the girl,
"Miss Mariar thought nothink of 'aving a new
pianny ev'ry week, an' the men was always
a-muckin' the stairs in bringing 'em in, or
takin' 'em out."

"Is Miss Maria, as you call her, the child
that's dead?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," she answered, " I think she is."

I at once took my leave, without any further
remarks, and, as the door closed behind me, I
fancied I heard a somewhat angry conversation
between the girl and some other female voice
(perhaps the invisible mistress's) in the passage.

Unfavourable as were my impressions of the
two last visits, I resolved to persevere in my
search; and the next advertisement that
attracted me was one in which an aged man,
whose sands of life had nearly run out,
announced his wish to provide a new home for his
piano before his death.

"You've kept it in excellent condition," I
remarked to the venerable-looking owner, for
it seemed to me as new and as showy as the
other two I had taken the trouble to examine.

"I have," he replied, "and I shouldn't like
to part with it to any man who wouldn't treat
it as well. It's been a companion to me for
many years, and I respect it."

"A very proper feeling," I remarked, "and I
hesitate in offering to deprive you of such a
companion."

"Not at all, sir," he answered quickly—"not
at all. With one foot in the grave, it's not
proper that I should stand with the other foot in a
piano. I've no friends or relations—none
whatever—the instrument's yours for fifty pounds."

"I think," I said, "I must take time to
consider before I decide."

"Why?" he asked, sharply. "You're a man
of business: so am I."

"True," I answered, "but this is a transaction,
like marriage, which a man seldom enters
into more than once during a life."

"Pay me five-and-forty pounds," he said, "and
the loss of the difference will fall upon the
charity to which I shall give the money."

"I think I must decline the purchase
altogether," I replied.

"You've either been playing upon my feelings,
sir," he said, with much energy, "or wasting my
time."

"Neither," I replied.

"Perhaps you are looking for a hurdy-gurdy?"
he asked, sarcastically.

"Wrong again," I returned; "the fact is, I
have seen this instrument before, at the house of
a lady who ought, by this time, to be at Sierra
Leone."

A minute but peculiar mark on one of the
keys had enabled me to satisfy myself about this
discovery, which turned out to be right. As I
took my leave of the pianoforte proprietor,
whose sands of life—according to the advertisement—
had nearly run out, I noticed a slight
change in the position of his wig, to say nothing
of his altered tone and manner, which made him
more youthful by thirty years.

My experience by this time ought to have
satisfied me that little pecuniary benefit was to
be derived from hunting for bargains out of the
regular order of trade. Curiosity, however, led
me on; and the little knowledge I had already
gained produced a feeling of confidence—perhaps
over-confidence—in my wisdom and keenness
that gave an additional zest to the pursuit.

The next piano that I visited was the property
of a widow lady in reduced circumstances, who
was compelled to part with some of the luxuries
that had adorned her once happy home. The
address was still the same kind of front parlour
in a house let out for lodgings, and the piano
was still the same kind of gay, showy, got-up-
looking instrument, refusing in its shiny coat of
sticky, treacly varnish, to harmonise with the
other threadbare and dusty trappings of the room.
After a few minutes' delay, the lady made her
appearance, dressed in an ordinary vulgar dress,
and with nothing of the widow about her except
a particularly large and frightful cap, which she
had evidently put on in a hurry, to attend me in
what she considered becoming costume.

"You'll excuse me, sir," she said, with
emotion, "if I seem to hurry you, but you know
how painful it must be to me to sell anything
that belonged to him, when he's only been dead
a month—a month come next Wednesday."

"Indeed!" I said, with a voice of sympathy.
"Is it a six three-quarter octave?"

"No, sir," she returned, with a deep sigh,
"he couldn't a-bear anything larger than a six-
and-a-half. He never had strength to play upon
it, though he gave eighty-five guineas for it a
month before he died; and I suppose I mustn't
ask any one more than sixty?"

"I thought it seemed very new," I replied;
"unseasoned, if I may use the term."

"No, sir," she said, "not unseasoned. New,
if you like, but not unseasoned; he was too good
a judge for that; and his last words almost were,
'Mary Anne, if you let that instrument go for
less than I gave for it, you'll do yourself an
injury.'"

I went direct from the widow's house, of
course without having made a purchase, to
look at the piano of a widower in reduced
circumstances, which, my advertisement list told
me, was for sale in the next street. The instrument
might have been the twin-brother of the
widow's piano, and the widower might have