l a picture for twenty pounds for which others
have offered fifty pounds."

"No, I don't think so," replied the organist. "It wouldn't be a real
sale at all, you know, but only just a colour for helping her."

"Well, as you have been kind enough to ask my advice, I see no further
objection, and think it very good of you to show such thoughtfulness for
poor Miss Joliffe."

"Thank you," said the organist hesitatingly--"thank you; I had hoped you
would take that view of the matter. There is a further little
difficulty: I am as poor as a church mouse. I live like an old screw,
and never spend a penny, but, then, I haven't got a penny to spend, and
so can't save."

Westray had already wondered how Mr Sharnall could command so large a
sum as twenty pounds, but thought it more prudent to make no comments.

Then the organist took the bull by the horns.

"I didn't know," he said, "whether you would feel inclined to join me in
the purchase. I have got ten pounds in the savings' bank; if you could
find the other ten pounds, we could go shares in the picture; and, after
all, that wouldn't much matter, for Miss Euphemia is quite sure to buy
it back from us before very long."

He stopped and looked at Westray. The architect was taken aback. He
was of a cautious and calculating disposition, and a natural inclination
to save had been reinforced by the conviction that any unnecessary
expenditure was in itself to be severely reprobated. As the Bible was
to him the foundation of the world to come, so the keeping of meticulous
accounts and the putting by of however trifling sums, were the
foundation of the world that is. He had so carefully governed his life
as to have been already able, out of a scanty salary, to invest more
than a hundred pounds in Railway Debentures. He set much store by the
half-yearly receipt of an exiguous interest cheque, and derived a
certain dignity and feeling of commercial stability from envelopes
headed the "Great Southern Railway," which brought him from time to time
a proxy form or a notice of shareholders' meetings. A recent
examination of his bankbook had filled him with the hope of being able
ere long to invest a second hundred pounds, and he had been turning over
in his mind for some days the question of the stocks to be selected; it
seemed financially unsound to put so large a sum in any single security.

This suddenly presented proposal that he should make a serious inroad on
his capi