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If he had waited much longer, the money would have burned a hole in Dave Troyer's pocket. So he was glad Diane Johnston was home when he knocked on her door last December.

The single mother of three young children did not immediately recognize the man in the doorway. Little did she know he would answer her dilemma: after buying Christmas gifts for her children with money set aside for car repairs, her car broke down.

Dave had met Diane at her garage sale. One item—a vase signed by the artist Carl Schmit—caught his eye.

"I figured it was worth more than the five dollars she was asking for it, so I gave her fifteen," explains Dave, the owner of an auction house in Plain City, Ohio.

Dave took the vase home to enjoy its simple beauty. But while reading a magazine about antiques, he spotted a similar vase. His eyes widened.

At the next Rookwood auction, Dave sold the vase for $3,000. He decided to split his profit with Diane.

When he handed the money to Diane, Dave recalls, "She cried, telling me it was more cash than she had ever had in her life. She even called me her Christmas angel."

Later that evening, on the way to the church Christmas dinner, Dave didn't feel angelic.

"I felt like I was robbing Diane Johnston," he remembers.

So after the dinner, he knocked at her door again. Explaining that as a Christian he wanted to give her the rest of the profit (minus the standard auction commission), he handed her a bundle of one-hundred dollar bills despite her protests.

Diane says she was not surprised by Dave's act of kindness. "I knew what kind of person he was in the community," she explains. "But, there aren't many people like Dave."

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