"Well, it was the day after the meeting that I was singing to myself the words,—
"Kings shall fall down before Him,
And gold and incense bring,"
when it seemed to me like as if I could see them coming like Solomon in all his glory, and laying down their gifts at His dear feet; but, there, you will be getting all my secret out of me. It must come, I s'pose. Well, the tune and the words were sort of ringing in my head when I turned round out of the wind for to—to—— You mustn't be hard on me. It was to take a pinch of snuff."
"Oh, Jennifer!"
"It was only a penn'orth a week, sir," she pleaded, "And it did seem to sharpen me up a bit out in the cold. Well, while I was taking it I laughed to myself. 'That's the nearest to incense that I can think of,' I said. 'I will give that to the Lord.' And, bless you, sir, would you believe it? I got to turning round out of the wind to make believe I had it, and it did every bit so well.
"The next Saturday, instead of giving the penny to a neighbour to get the snuff into market, I put the penny into an old broken teapot, and put it on top of the dresser, and I said, 'There's a nest egg, then.' Well, I quite longed for the next Saturday to come, and then there was a penny more. And in three weeks there was a threepenny bit. I did think that was a prettier colour for the Lord, but, bless you, I liked the three pennies better.
"That tiny little threepenny bit in that great teapot! I was most ready to cry for it in there all by its lonely little self. I couldn't help thinking about it till it came to be almost like when I had to leave the baby home and couldn't think of anything else, and thought I heard it a-crying whenever so much as a lamb would bleat or a horniwink go crying overhead.[A]
[A] A horniwink is in that dialect a green plover or lapwing.
"My heart sort of went out to the poor little threepenny bit. 'You shall have company, my dear,' I said to myself, 'that you shall, before very long.'