But a glance at the troubled old face told him the truth.
"All right, ma'am," he said again. "'Twas a mistake. Mistakes will happen," and he dropped the silver piece back into her hand.
"Take the halfpenny at least, my boy," said she. "It was very good, very good indeed of you to tell me of my mistake. If it was money I could spare on myself—but—it is my rule to give this once a month at church, and—I could not make it up again."
"All right, ma'am," Billy repeated for the third time, anxious to be off before the old lady could hear the choke of disappointment in his voice.
(It was just then I passed them.)
"But I'll tell you what I'll do," she went on, brightening up. "I'll pay you the shilling in halfpence, every week. I'm sure I can manage that. So you look out for me each Sunday morning, and I'll have it ready," and off she trotted, quite happy at having thus settled the difficulty. "I shouldn't feel honest" she said to herself, "if I didn't make it up to him after really giving it to him. And a halfpenny a week even I can manage extra."
For of course Billy's halfpenny was not to interfere with her regular Sunday morning's dole to the first crossing-sweeper she met.
I think she was right. I am sure that the halfpennies he received so regularly till what she thought her debt to him was paid, helped to make and keep Billy Harding as honest as a man as he had been as a child.
The next winter saw no little old lady trotting along to church in the cold. She went away for her treat of the year—a fortnight in the country; but she fell ill the very day she came back, and never was able to go out again. It fell to my share—she asked me to do it—to tell the little crossing-sweeper when she died, and to give him a small present she had left him. He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes—he didn't want me to see he was crying.
"'Twill seem quite strange-like never to see her no more," he said. "I were just beginning to wonder when she'd be back. Twenty-four Sundays and she never missed, wet or dry! I'd have liked her to know I goes too, reg'lar, to church in the afternoons as she wanted me to."