here Phil
was sitting, she sneezed. Not a loud sneeze, but one of those inward
convulsions that makes the whole body twitch spasmodically.

It sent a handful of petals from the wilted rose showering down into her
lap. The coin dropped back into her purse as she made an instinctive
grab to save them from going to the floor. Then blushing and embarrassed
as the plate paused in front of her, she fumbled desperately in her
purse to regain the dropped quarter. The instant the coin left her
fingers she saw the mistake she had made, and reached out her hand as if
to snatch it back. But it was too late, even if she had had the courage
to reclaim it. She had dropped her English shilling into the plate
instead of the quarter! Her precious talisman from the bride's cake,
that she had carried as a pocket piece ever since Eugenia's wedding.

Betty, who sat next to her, was the only one who saw her confusion, and
her sudden movement towards the plate after it passed. She glanced at
her curiously, wondering at her agitation, but the next moment forgot it
in listening to the wonderful voice that took up the solo.

But the solo, as far as Mary was concerned, might have been a siren
whistle or a steam calliope. She was watching the man of the bald head
and the double chins, who had walked off with her shilling. Down the
central aisle went the pompous gentleman at last in company with two
others, and the three plates were received by the rector and blessed and
deposited on the altar, all in the most deliberate fashion, while Mary
twisted her fingers and thought of desperate but impossible plans to
rescue her shilling.

If she had been alone she would have hurried to the front at the close
of the service, and watched to see who became the custodian of the alms.
Then she could have pounced upon him and begged to be allowed to rectify
her mistake. But Phil and the girls would think she had lost her mind if
they should see her do such a thing, unless she explained to them.
Somehow she shrank from letting anybody know how highly she valued that
shilling. All at once she had grown self-conscious. She had not known
herself, just how much she cared for it until it was gone beyond recall.
Aside from the sentiment for which she cherished it she had a
superstitious feeling that her fate was bound up with it in such a way
that the gods would cease to be propitious if she lost the talisman that
influenced them.

No feasible plan occurred to her,