SOLD TO RILEY

"Lillian's Regime" would come in the mail from Aunt Katherine.      It told what could and what could not be eaten, and my mother kept it in front of her at the table and referred to it as food was being passed.
   "You can't have that, Lillian," she would say to a taboo item.   

   "Why not?" my father would ask.
   "Because Katherine says she can't," my mother would explain.
   "Poor Lillian — of course she can have it if she wants it," he would say firmly. "I don't care what Katherine says — we're not going to let her starve."
   "Oh, no — I really shouldn't have any," was Aunt Lillian's     stock remark as she passed her plate to my father for the helping she never dared to take herself.
   She put on lots of weight at our house. Aunt Katherine must  have suspected foul play because, come next visit, the 'regime' would be revised downward.
 

   Country farm auctions were much more fun than those specializing in antiques; we could get much more, bulkwise, for much less money. In those days the rural auctioneer accepted a modest bid increase, say five cents — or even my father's favorite, two and a half cents. Mrs. Greene of Wayland, however, used to raise the bid by a penny which annoyed the auctioneers. She was   a very wealthy woman, but notorious for her stinginess; she     found it exceedingly painful to part with any amount of money,     no matter how small. Once at an auction in Wayland, when time  off had been called for lunch, my father happened to meet her       at the caterer's tent. It had been several years since she had seen him and she felt that this would be an appropriate time to

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