“That is going to be sold, too,” said Mrs. Simpson. “The Thorpes won’t buy that in.”
“Ah—yes,” said Andy.
Then, suddenly, Mrs. Simpson’s face began to work like a child’s before it cries aloud, and she passed her hand over the smooth surface of the top.
“Nobody’s ever polished it but myself. We bought it in London on our honeymoon. Now Mrs. Will Werrit’ll get it—and those girls of hers’ll put hot-water jugs on the polished top.”
Andy stood there, touched to the heart, struggling for something to say, and only able to stammer out ridiculously at last—
“Perhaps they’ll use mats.”
But as he went home he began to wonder if he could afford to buy the sideboard and present it to Mrs. Simpson. No; he had had so many expenses on entering the incumbency that there was practically nothing at the bank. The little fortune which had sufficed for his education and for furnishing the Vicarage was now at an end. He literally could not lay hands on a spare five-pound note. A certain sum he had set aside for the new bicycle which was a necessity in a country living, but that was all he had over and above the amount for current expenses——
His thoughts stopped in that unpleasant way everybody knows, when a conclusion is forced upon an unwilling mind. He turned into the yard and pulled out his old bicycle. It would do. It was not a dignified machine, but it would do.
He had to see that as he trundled it dismally back again and went into the house to search for a bill of Mrs. Simpson’s sale among his papers.
Oh, nonsense! He wouldn’t!