454 JONES v. JONES.

changed from one kind of property into another; from real into
personal estate.

With regard to the mutation of the estate, the rule in equity
seems to be different; or, at least, it appears to have been held,
tiiat all four of those several acts are not essentially necessary to
produce a conversion of the property from realty to personalty.
For, where, on a bill in chancery to obtain a partition of the real
estate of an intestate among his heirs, one of whom was then a
feme covert; on the lands being deemed incapable of division, a
decree was passed ordering them to be sold; and the trustee,
appointed for that purpose, reported, that he had sold them accord-
ingly; which sale was finally ratified by the court. After which,
and before the purchase money had been paid, and before any order
had been passed by the court, directing the manner in which the
purchase money should be distributed, the feme covert died; and
then her husband died. Upon which the interest of the feme covert,
at the time of her death, was viewed in the nature of an equitable
chose in action; her individual legal estate in the realty having
been changed by the decree, the sale, and the ratification thereof,
into a floating undivided interest of that kind.

Hence it appears, that, in equity', the mutation is effected by the
mere preliminary operations of the court, or by those judicial
proceedings which are always had as preparatory only to that par-
tition of the property among the parties which is the sole object of
the suit. And it was further held, that although the husband was
a party to the suit, yet he could not be considered as having, by
those proceedings alone, reduced this interest of his wife's into
possession; because the proceeding only directs a sale of the pro-
perty, and the proceeds to be brought into court. It professes not
to ascertain the rights of the respective claimants; it makes no
distribution, it awards no payment, either immediately or contin-
gently, to husband and wife, or either of them; no such decree has
passed as is equivalent to a judgment at law, which would vest the
chose of the wife absolutely in the surviving husband; nor has any
order been passed by the court directing the proceeds to be paid to
the husband and wife, or to the husband alone. And therefore,
although the real estate of the wife had been converted into an
interest in the nature of an equitable chose in action, that is, into
mere personal property of that description; yet, as the husband had
not reduced it into possession during his lifetime, it passed to the