And something in the kind, boyish face under the upstanding mop of hair may have stirred Mrs. Simpson, for she said, in the queer tone she always used coming down the aisle in church—
“I prayed that some way might be found for me to have the sideboard. And now one’s been found. You never know how Providence is going to help you.”
Andy opened his mouth to explain that Providence does not set fire to some one else’s property to provide a tenant with space for a sideboard, when he saw Sally’s eager face looking up at him.
The senior curate would have been able to explain without hurting anything, no doubt, but Andy was afraid to try.
“You never do know,” was all he said.
Then he went home through the freshness of the early morning, and managed to open the door with his latch-key, unheard by Mrs. Jebb. It was a fortunate thing that he had forgotten to bolt it after him the night before, because his arm was now so painful that he would have found it impossible to climb up the ivy to his window.
He slept late, in spite of the pain, for he was worn out, and after a poor attempt at a midday meal he was sitting at tea in the dining-room when Sam Petch chanced to go past the window.
The no-butter rule still held good, but Andy was no anchorite, and generally mitigated the dryness of his bread with jam or marmalade. This evening, however, his stomach turned against plum jam, and he sat listlessly gnawing a piece of dry bread when Sam Petch glanced in at the window.
Sam stood quite still for a moment, then put down his spade and rake, and crept on the short grass to the side of the window, where, by craning his neck, he could see without being seen.
He stood there watching for a few minutes, then suddenly turned away, and began to run fast across the grass in the direction of his cottage.