The rugged elder looked studiously in the opposite direction while I slipped the coin on to the plate; somehow I hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed when he discovered that the respectable-looking stranger had not given more handsomely after the pleading of the preacher. But it was all I had.
After the service I lingered a moment to read a quaint old tombstone in the church precincts. The rest of the worshippers likewise lingered—respectful but curious—in the road outside the gate. The preacher had shaken hands with me at the door; my rugged friend had been immersed in the duties of his office as steward, treasurer, and church secretary combined. But now he came out of the door, looked anxiously about, and seeing me still there, made straight for me. I concluded that he, too, was going to shake hands, and possibly inquire if I was staying in the neighbourhood. But what he actually said was this—
“Excuse me, ma’am, but do you happen to know what you put into the plate?”
“A half-crown,” I faltered, wondering whether by any remote chance it was a bad one.
He nodded his head, and, opening his work-hardened hand, displayed the morning’s collection—seven pennies, three halfpennies, and my half-crown on top.
“That’s right,” he nodded. And then, lowering his voice, presumably to save my feelings, he added, “But if ’twas a mistake, and you didn’t mean to put in all that, you can have it back.”
Do you know, it made a lump come in my throat.
I told Ursula about it at dinner, remarking that it looked as though they hadn’t much faith even though they had specially prayed for generous giving.
Ursula said that in her opinion it looked as though it was high time I presented to the ragbag the hat I had worn that morning, since it had been for months past a dejected object of pity, though with her usual delicacy of feeling she had, up to the present, refrained from telling me so in plain English. But now, in all kindness such as only a dear friend can show, she had no hesitation in saying that she wasn’t at all surprised that they mistook me for an old age pensioner on the verge of bankruptcy.