"Nonsense, Jill, you mustn't have such fancies."
"But it isn't fancy. I was looking at Punch in the drawing-room window seat yesterday, and Miss Webb said to Mona, 'Well, all I can say is, that I wish Cecil Arnold had rather gone to Timbuctoo than come here.' And Mona said, 'Nonsense!' like you said just now, and Miss Webb said, 'I see the end. I shouldn't have been afraid a year ago.' And then she said she was sorry for poor Sir Henry Talbot. Now what did she mean, Miss Falkner? What is the end going to be?"
"You shouldn't listen to grown-up people's talk, Jill."
"But I couldn't help hearing."
"Then you should never repeat what you hear."
Jill subsided.
Mr. Arnold delighted Jill's heart a few Sundays after his arrival by taking for his text the words: "Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord.
"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort, for all things come of Thee and of Thine own have we given Thee."
He spoke of the different things people received from God, and how very few of them they offered back, and then in plain and simple words he touched upon the system of tenth-giving.
"There is not a little boy or girl in this church, however poor; there is not a landed proprietor, however rich, who cannot side by side give this small portion of what they receive to the service of God. The poorest labourer can spare a tenth; he will be blessed in giving it, and joy will be his portion."