"It would be better to tell us at once," Mildred said gravely, and at the same moment Jessie murmured, "Jack!"
"Poor Jack!" sighed Miss Perkins.
Jessie broke into a frightened sob.
"No, no, not that; she does not mean that," said Mildred. "Jack is not killed, Miss Perkins! No, I thought not," as Miss Perkins shook her head. "Then who was it? Not the Vicar?"
Another shake, and Mildred drew a breath of relief.
"Just out in the street," Miss Perkins began, suddenly finding her voice. "And I'd been talking to him only one minute before. He said it was a fine day, and I said yes, it was. And he said he didn't think it would be so fine to-morrow, the clouds were gathering up so. O dear, never thinking that there wasn't to be no to-morrow for him! And I said what a wonderful thing it was about the money for the boat, and didn't he wonder who it was that had given it? O dear me!" with another gasp. "And he said he wouldn't have thought there was a person in the place as had got anything like as much to spare; and he only knew he hadn't.
"'Times is bad,' says he, with a sort of a melancholy smile, 'and it's hard enough to make both ends meet nowadays,' he says.
"And then I said, 'Good-morning.'
"And he says 'Good-morning.' And then he turned back as I was turning away, and he says, 'So Jack's going to leave us.'
"And I says, 'A very sensible plan too.'