"That night when I got home I was just going to get my cup o' tea, when it came to my mind, 'There's company for the poor little thing.' At first I tried to put away the thought, for I did dearly love my cup o' tea. Coming home tired and wet and cold, it was wonderful how it used to cheer and refresh a body. So I tried to think of something else. But the more I tried the more I couldn't. At last I sat down by the bit of fire and had it out with myself before I went to bed.
"'You know,' I said to myself, 'a penny a week—what's that? Why, a whole year will only come to less than a crown piece. Gold and incense indeed, they are a long way off at that rate.' Then I got down the broken teapot and looked in. I had to turn it round and round before I could so much as see it. And when I did I was fair ashamed of myself. 'Poor little thing,' I said, 'and to think that you must wait three weeks for company! No, you shan't.'
"Well, I put it back again and then screwed up my courage to see what I could make believe for tea. At last I thought I would toast some crusties till they were nice and brown. Then I would pour the boiling water on them. 'The colour will be right enough,' I said, 'but what about the taste, I wonder? However, taste as they mind to, there's threepence a week!' So I went to bed, and that night I dreamed that the broken teapot was so full of sovereigns that I was quite frightened and woke all of a tremble.
"I dare say it didn't taste exactly right at the first going off. But very soon I came to like it just as well. And I really do believe, after all said and done, 'tis more strengthener and more nourishinger than the tea.
"So the next Saturday, instead of asking a neighbour to bring home an ounce of tea, I put the threepenny bit in the broken teapot. And there was fourpence a week. And I changed it into a shilling; and then it grew into a half-crown; and last of all it came to half a sovereign.
"I was glad to have a bit of that colour. It was years since I had so much as seen one of them. 'Tis the only colour that is good enough for Him. And I haven't done yet, please God. In eight months' time there will be another, and that will make a whole sovereign. It isn't like doing the thing at all to do it by halves. That is what I have set my heart upon. That will be 'Gold and Incense—One Pound.'"
Chapter IV
For days after hearing it her good friend could think of nothing but Jennifer's story. His own gifts to the new chapel and that of the others seemed poor and little beside her offering—it was the mite which was more than they all had given. He felt that he could not rest until he had found for her something better than the ill-paid toil in the fields. As he rode on his way he chanced to see a notice announcing the sale of a coppice of some twenty acres, freehold. Here was the opportunity of serving Jennifer, and at once he made haste to avail himself of it. The bit of ground was bought, coppice and all. Then he made his way to her house.
