"Well, Jennifer, I suppose I must take it," and he opened his collecting book to enter the subscription with her name, but she checked him instantly.
"No, sir, no. You must put it in the box. I did not mean to let anybody know, but I could not tell how to manage it. If I put it in the box my own self, why some of them might see me, and then I was afraid they might be after stopping my half a crown a week and my loaf of bread, thinking that I had come into a fortune all of a sudden." And she laughed again.
"No, Jennifer; we must have it down among the subscriptions, and it ought really to head the list. I will call it Anonymous, you know."
"Oh, that's much too fine a name for Jennifer Petch. Call it 'Gold and Incense.' I do know what that do mean, if anybody else don't," and Jennifer laughed again.
And so it was entered, and so it was duly announced. Jennifer blushed and laughed so much when it was read that any suspicious person might have found out her secret after all. But no one dreamed that this was Jennifer's assumed name.
It was not long before her good friend met with Jennifer again.
"I can't get over that half-sovereign of yours, Jennifer," he began. "I am really quite curious to know how you managed it. You will tell me, won't you?"
"Well, I s'pose I must," said Jennifer shyly; "but I meant to keep it all to myself, you know. Nobody knows about it but you."
"Well, then, I may know all, mayn't I?"
Little by little it all came out. And this was Jennifer's story: