"Thank you," she said. "We'll forgive you then."
"You mercenary little wretches," said Captain Willoughby. "Is this a new game by which you fleece every stranger?"
"The money isn't for us!" said Jill indignantly. "It's for a kind of church."
Mr. Arnold looked at her, and gave one of his rare smiles again.
"I must hear about it," he said. "I should like to know where my fine will go."
He certainly knew how to gain children's confidences. Before very long on a garden seat Jill was telling him about it all, even about their cherished "Bethel."
She was rapidly making the trespasser into a friend.
"I am most interested," he said; "I am going back to a big manufacturing town soon, and I think I must try and get some of my boys and girls to put aside a tenth."
"Have you any little boys and girls of your own?" asked Jill.