's manner was
final. His wife threw a swift glance at Ella, who stood behind her
father's chair, and received a message back that she too had discerned
finality in the tone.

Sneyd got up, and walking slowly to the fireplace emitted the casual
remark: "Yes, you will, Peake."

He was a man of considerable education, and though in neither force nor
astuteness was he the equal of James Peake, it often pleased him to
adopt towards his friend a philosophic pose--the pose of a seer, of one
far removed from the trivial disputes in which the colliery-owner was
frequently concerned.

"Yes, you will, Peake," he repeated.

"I shanna', Sneyd."

"I can read you like a book, Peake." This was a favourite phrase of
Sneyd's, which Peake never heard without a faint secret annoyance. "At
the bottom of your mind you mean to give that hundred. It's your duty to
do so, and you will. You'll let them persuade you."

"I'll bet thee a shilling I don't."

"Done!"

"Ssh!" murmured Mrs Lovatt, "I'm ashamed of both of you, betting on such
a subject--or on any subject," she added. "And Ella here too!"

"It's a bet, Sneyd," said Peake, doggedly, and then turned to Lovatt.
"What do you say about this, Enoch?"

But Enoch Lovatt, self-trained to find safety in the middle, kept that
neutral and diplomatic silence which invariably marked his demeanour in
the presence of an argument.

"Now, Nan, you'll talk to James," said Mrs Lovatt, when they all stood
at the front-door bidding good-night.

"Nay, I've nothing to do with it," Mrs Peake replied, as quickly as at
dinner she might have set down a very hot plate. In some women profound
affection exists side by side with a nervous dread lest that affection
should seem to possess the least influence over its object.

II

Peake dismissed from his mind as grotesque the suggestion that he should
contribute a hundred pounds to the organ fund; it revolted his sense of
the fitness of things; the next morning he had entirely forgotten it.
But two days afterwards, when he was finishing his midday dinner with a
piece of Cheshire cheese, his wife said:

"James, have you thought anything more about that organ affair?" She
gave a timid little laugh.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, holding a morsel of cheese
on the end of his knife; then he ate the cheese in silence.

"Nan," he said at length, rather deliberately, "have they been trying to
come round you? Because it won't work. Upo