The Provost, who had been walking up and down all the time and wiping his brow, finally plumped solidly into his chair. There was a mighty discussion—in which, as usual, many epithets were bandied about; but finally it was unanimously agreed that, if the offer were put on a firm and legal basis and the interdict withdrawn, the "Smith's Lassie" compromise, as it was called for brevity, might be none such a bad solution of the difficulty for all parties.
Thus by the wise thought and brave heart of a girl was the great controversy ended. And now the tourist and holiday-maker, each after his kind, passes his sixpence into the slot of a clicking gate, instead of depositing it in the brazen offertory salver, which had been the desire of Prissy's heart.
"For," said one of the councillors generously, when the plate was proposed, "how do we know that Mrs. Cannon might not keep every second sixpence for herself—or maybe send it up to Mr. Smith? We all know that she was long a servant in his house. No, no, honesty is honesty—but it's better when well looked after. Let us have a patent 'clicker.' I have used one attached to my till for years, and found it of great utility in the bacon-and-ham trade."
But the change made no difference to Hugh John and no difference to Toady Lion; for they came and went to the castle by the stepping-stones, and Cissy Carter took that way too, leaping as nimbly as any of them from stone to stone.
On the Sunday after this was finally arranged, Mr. Burnham gave out his text:—
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
And this is the way he ended his sermon: "There is one here to-day whom I might without offence or flattery call a true child of God. I will not say who that is; but this I will say, that I, for one, would rather be such a peacemaker, and have a right to be called by that other name, than be general of the greatest army in the world."
"I think he must mean the Provost—or else my father," said Prissy to herself, looking reverently up to where, in the front row of the upper seats, the local chief magistrate sat, mopping his head with a red spotted handkerchief, and sunning himself in the somewhat sultry beams of his own greatness.