"Very good of you, Miss Etherage, to think about me."
"And you never gave me your subscription for our poor old women, last winter!"
"Oh! my subscription? I'll give it now—what was it to be—a pound?"
"No, you promised only ten shillings, but it ought to be a pound. I think less would be shameful."
"Then, Miss Agnes, shall it be a pound?" he said, turning to her with a laugh—with his fingers in his purse, "whatever you say I'll do."
"Agnes—of course, a pound," said Charity, in her nursery style of admonition.
"Charity says it must be a pound," answered Agnes.
"And you say so?"
"Of course, I must."
"Then a pound it is—and mind," he added, laughing, and turning to Miss Charity with the coin in his fingers, "I'm to figure in your book of benefactors—your golden book of saints, or martyrs, rather; but you need not put down my name, only 'The old woman's friend,' or 'A lover of flannel' or 'A promoter of petticoats,' or any other benevolent alias you think becoming."