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The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances by using his
walking-stick as a hammer, and knocked down the lot on any
convenient object that took his fancy, such as the crown of a
little boy's head, or the shoulders of a by-stander who had no
business there except to taste the brew; a proceeding which would
have been deemed humorous but for the air of stern rigidity which
that auctioneer's face preserved, tending to show that the
eccentricity was a result of that absence of mind which is
engendered by the press of affairs, and no freak of fancy at all.
Mr. Melbury stood slightly apart from the rest of the
Peripatetics, and Grace beside him, clinging closely to his arm,
her modern attire looking almost odd where everything else was
old-fashioned, and throwing over the familiar garniture of the
trees a homeliness that seemed to demand improvement by the
addition of a few contemporary novelties also. Grace seemed to
regard the selling with the interest which attaches to memories
revived after an interval of obliviousness.


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