"Tode," Mrs. Hunt went on, "I think it's high time you got yourself some better clothes. Dear knows, you need 'em if ever a boy did, an' certainly you must have money 'nough now."
"'Spect I have. I never thought about it," replied Tode.
"Well, you'd better think about it, an' 'tend to it right away. 'F you're goin' to church with bishops you'd ought to look respectable, anyhow."
Something in the tone and emphasis with which Mrs. Hunt spoke brought the colour into Tode's brown cheeks, while Nan looked at the good woman in surprise and dismay. She did not know how troubled was the mother's heart over her own boy lately, as she saw him growing rough and careless, and that it seemed to her hard that this waif of the streets should be going up while her Dick went down.
Tode thought over what had been said, and the result was that the next time he appeared he was so changed that the good woman looked twice before she recognised him. His clothes had been purchased at a secondhand store, and they might have fitted better than they did, but they were a vast improvement on what he had worn before. He had scrubbed his face as well as his hands this time, and had combed his rough hair as well as he could with the broken bit of comb which was all he possessed in the way of toilet appliances. It is no easy matter for a boy to keep himself well washed and brushed with no face cloth or towel or brush, and no wash basin save the public sink. Tode had done his best however, and Nan looked at him in pleased surprise.
"You do look nice, Tode," she said, and the boy's face brightened with satisfaction.
All through that week Tode told himself that he would not go to the church again, yet day by day the longing grew to see the bishop's face once more and to hear his voice.
"W'at's the use! O'ny makes a feller feel meaner 'n dirt," he said to himself again and again, yet the next Sabbath afternoon found him hanging about St. Mark's hoping that the bishop would ask him in again. But the minutes passed and the bishop did not appear.
"Maybe he's gone in aready," the boy thought, peering cautiously through the pillars of the entrance. There was no one in sight, and Tode crept quietly across the porch through the wide vestibule to the church door. Only the sexton was there, and his back was toward the boy as he stood looking out of the opposite door.
"Now's my time," thought Tode, and he ran swiftly and silently up the aisle to the pew where the bishop had placed him. There he hesitated. He was not sure which of several pews was the one, but with a quick glance at the sexton's back, he slipped into the nearest, and hearing the man's footsteps approaching, dropped to the floor and crawled under the seat.