timidly for my start of surprise.

'Do you see it?' she says anxiously, and I see it, and hear it, for
this time it is a bran-new wicker chair, of the kind that whisper
to themselves for the first six months.

'A going-about body was selling them in a cart,' my mother begins,
and what followed presents itself to my eyes before she can utter
another word. Ten minutes at the least did she stand at the door
argy-bargying with that man. But it would be cruelty to scold a
woman so uplifted.

'Fifteen shillings he wanted,' she cries, 'but what do you think I
beat him down to?'

'Seven and sixpence?'

She claps her hands with delight. 'Four shillings, as I'm a living
woman!' she crows: never was a woman fonder of a bargain.

I gaze at the purchase with the amazement expected of me, and the
chair itself crinkles and shudders to hear what it went for (or is
it merely chuckling at her?). 'And the man said it cost himself
five shillings,' my mother continues exultantly. You would have
thought her the hardest person had not a knock on the wall summoned
us about this time to my sister's side. Though in bed she has been
listening, and this is what she has to say, in a voice that makes
my mother very indignant, 'You drive a bargain! I'm thinking ten
shillings was nearer what you paid.'