"These surplices are all too long or too short for me," complained the young tenor, who had recently been engaged for the solo parts.
Amarilly surveyed him critically.
"He's jest about Mr. St. John's size," she mused, "only he ain't so fine a shape."
With the thought came an inspiration that brought a quickly waged battle. It seemed sacrilegious, although she didn't express it by that word, to permit another to wear a garment so sacred to the memory of Mr. Meredith, but poverty, that kill-sentiment, had fully developed the practical side of Amarilly.
She made answer to her stabs of conscience by action instead of words, going straight to her friend, the ticket-seller.
"That feller," she said, indicating the tenor, "ain't satisfied with the fit of his surplus. I've got one jest his size. It's done up spick and span clean, and I'll rent it to him fer the show. He kin hev it fer the ev'nin' fer a dollar. Would you ask him fer me?"
"Certainly, Amarilly," he agreed.
He came back to her, smiling.
"He'll take it, but he seems to think your charge rather high—more than that of most costumers, he said."
"This ain't no common surplus," defended Amarilly loftily. "It was wore by the rector of St. Mark's, and he give it to me. It's of finer stuff than the choir surpluses, and it hez got a cross worked onto it, and a pocket in it, too."