"  No,"  said  Mr.  Severance.     "  It  isn't  for  sale."

Clara  received  the  money  for  her  little  home,  with
the  greatest  astonishment.  The  agent  who  arranged
the  sale  wrote  merely  that  two  bidders  "  got  to  run-
ning each  other,"  and  that  the  sale  was  perfectly  leg-
itimate and  honorable.  The  faintest  idea  of  the  real


THOU   SHALT  NOT.  297

truth  of  the  matter  never  occurred  to  her.  She  paid
up  all  her  bills  at  Chatham  and  departed,  promising
good  Mrs.  Baldwin  to  write  whenever  she  got  "  set-
tled "  in  her  new  place.
When  Mr.  Severance,  who  was  one  of  the  clerks  in
the  employ  of  Bird  &  Bird,  recited  the  particulars  of
the  sale  to  Grey  burn,  he  was  much  pleased.  The  ex-
planation made  by  Squire  Sawyer  also  interested  him
greatly.
"  I'm  glad  that  blacksmith  didn't  get  a  chance  to
live  in  the  house  where  she  was  born  and  reared,"  he
said  to  himself.  "  I'm  very  glad.  And  I  don't  see
why,  either  ;  for  it  never  can  make  any  difference  to


CHAPTER  XXVII.
