was just splendid!"

"Well, well!" exclaimed Peake, genuinely amazed at this proof of
religious vitality. "Who are the subscribers?"

"I'm one," said Enoch Lovatt, quietly, but with unconcealed pride.

"And I'm another," said Mrs Lovatt. "Bless you, I should have been
ashamed of myself if I hadn't responded to such an appeal. You may say
what you like about Titus Blackhurst--I know there's a good many that
don't like him--but he's a real good sort. I'm sure he's the best Sunday
School superintendent we ever had. Then there's Mr Clayton-Vernon, and
Alderman Sutton, and young Henry Mynors and--"

"And Eardley Brothers--they're giving a hundred apiece," put in Lovatt,
glancing at Randolph Sneyd.

"I wish they'd pay their debts first," said Peake, with sudden
savageness.

"They're all right, I suppose?" said Sneyd, interested, and leaning over
towards Peake.

"Oh, they're all _right_," Peake said testily. "At least, I hope so,"
and he gave a short, grim laugh. "But they're uncommon slow payers. I
sent 'em in an account for coal only last week--three hundred and fifty
pound. Well, auntie, who's the ninth subscriber?"

"Ah, that's the point," said Enoch Lovatt. "The ninth isn't
forthcoming."

Mrs Lovatt looked straight at her sister's husband. "We want you to be
the ninth," she said.

"Me!" He laughed heartily, perceiving a broad humour in the suggestion.

"Oh, but I mean it," Mrs Lovatt insisted earnestly. "Your name was
mentioned at the trustees' meeting, wasn't it, Enoch?"

"Yes," said Lovatt, "it was."

"And dost mean to say as they thought as I 'ud give 'em a hundred pound
towards th' new organ?" said Peake, dropping into dialect.

"Why not?" returned Mrs Lovatt, her spirit roused. "I shall. Enoch will.
Why not you?"

"Oh, you're different. You're _in_ it."

"You can't deny that you're one of the richest pew-holders in the
chapel. What's a hundred pound to you? Nothing, is it, Mr Sneyd? When Mr
Copinger, our superintendent minister, mentioned it to me yesterday, I
told him I was sure you would consent."

"You did?"

"I did," she said boldly.

"Well, I shanna'."

Like many warm-hearted, impulsive and generous men, James Peake did not
care that his generosity should be too positively assumed. To take it
for granted was the surest way of extinguishing it. The pity was that
Mrs Lovatt, in the haste of her zeal for the amelioration of divine
worship at Bursley Chapel, had overlooked this fact. Peake