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Page 353

| her; his teeth were yellow as he gave her a slow smile. |

| "Good-day to you ma'am," the man said, making an effort to bow from where he sat on the seat. He dropped the reins from his long fingers, stepped down from the wagon, and came to stand at the foot of the steps to peer intensely up at Sasha. |

| "Might I interest you in my wares today, ma'am?" he asked, gesturing toward his wagon. "I've many sizes and shapes of slabs for you to choose from." |

| Sasha forked an eyebrow questionably. "Slabs?" she said, looking in wonder at the canvas that covered the wagon. "What sort of slabs?" |

| "Why, tombstones, ma'am," the vendor said, as though offended by her ignorance. "I've come prepared to engrave on the spot any that you might choose." |

| The vendor smiled slowly up at her again, his gray eyes squinting. "One never knows when the good Lord is going to call one home," he said, hunching over somewhat as he began to rub his hands together. "One must be prepared to meet one's maker with the right words of everlasting peace on one's gravestone." |

| Sasha paled and swallowed hard, feeling that this itinerant vendor's appearance with such morbid wares could be a bad omen. She started to tell him to leave, but he had already hurried to his wagon and had slung open the canvas at one side, revealing all sizes and shapes of stones, as though his wagon was a portable cemetery! |

| "Sir, please go elsewhere withwith your wares," Sasha said, turning her eyes away. "I . . . am not interested." |

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