We hauled out a splendid collection - an old table with a wobbly leg, a bird-cage, two or three pictures, a vase with only a tiny chip in it, a chestnut-roaster, a silver toast-rack, black with age and lack of polish, a fire-screen, with a picture of a King Charles spaniel sewn on it, among other things - but when my mother saw them she started hauling them all back again. "Oh, darling," she said, "you can't have that, it's a lovely old table, it's only waiting until your father has time to fix the leg, Jennifer might be glad of it... and not the bird-cage, we'll have another budgie one of these days... and that toast-rack, not that, the Mortimers gave it to us for a wedding present, Lady Mortimer would be sure to notice it on the White Elephant stall and never speak to me again... but darling, your great-great-grandmother sewed that fire-screen, I couldn't part with that and I can easily mend that little bit where the moths have got at it when I have time." My mother is a bit of a hoarder.
But, eventually, she did screw herself up to part with a few things and promised when she had time to look them out.
From JUMBLE SALE, published in the Collins Annual 1963.
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