A day that is fifty years off comes as certainly as if it had been in the next week; and Annie's feeling of infinite duration did not stop the sand-glass of Old Time.

The day arrived when everything was to be sold by public _roup_.

A great company of friends, neighbours, and acquaintances gathered; and much drinking of whisky-punch went on in the kitchen as well as in the room where, a few months before, the solemn funeral-assembly had met.
Little Annie speedily understood what all the bustle meant: that the day of desolation so long foretold by the Cassandra-croak of her aunt, had at length actually arrived, and that all the things she knew so well were vanishing from her sight for ever.
She was in the barn when the sound of the auctioneer's voice in the corn-yard made her look over the half-door and listen.

Gradually the truth dawned upon her; and she burst into tears over an old rake which she had been accustomed to call hers, because she had always dragged it at hay-making.

Then wiping her eyes hastily--for, partly from her aunt's hardness, she never could bear to be seen crying, even when a child--she fled to Brownie's stall, and burying herself in the manger, began weeping afresh.