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“Well, well!” exclaimed Peake, genuinely amazed at this proof of religious vitality. “Who are the subscribers?”

“I’m one,” said Enoch Lovatt, quietly, but with unconcealed pride.

“And I’m another,” said Mrs Lovatt. “Bless you, I should have been ashamed of myself if I hadn’t responded to such an appeal. You may say what you like about Titus Blackhurst–I know there’s a good many that don’t like him–but he’s a real good sort. I’m sure he’s the best Sunday School superintendent we ever had. Then there’s Mr Clayton-Vernon, and Alderman Sutton, and young Henry Mynors and–“

“And Eardley Brothers–they’re giving a hundred apiece,” put in Lovatt, glancing at Randolph Sneyd.

“I wish they’d pay their debts first,” said Peake, with sudden savageness.

“They’re all right, I suppose?” said Sneyd, interested, and leaning over towards Peake.

“Oh, they’re all right,” Peake said testily. “At least, I hope so,” and he gave a short, grim laugh. “But they’re uncommon slow payers. I sent ’em in an account for coal only last week–three hundred and fifty pound. Well, auntie, who’s the ninth subscriber?”

“Ah, that’s the point,” said Enoch Lovatt. “The ninth isn’t forthcoming.”

Mrs Lovatt looked straight at her sister’s husband. “We want you to be the ninth,” she said.

“Me!” He laughed heartily, perceiving a broad humour in the suggestion.

“Oh, but I mean it,” Mrs Lovatt insisted earnestly. “Your name was mentioned at the trustees’ meeting, wasn’t it, Enoch?”

“Yes,” said Lovatt, “it was.”

“And dost mean to say as they thought as I ‘ud give ’em a hundred pound towards th’ new organ?” said Peake, dropping into dialect.

“Why not?” returned Mrs Lovatt, her spirit roused. “I shall. Enoch will. Why not you?”

“Oh, you’re different. You’re in it.”

“You can’t deny that you’re one of the richest pew-holders in the chapel. What’s a hundred pound to you? Nothing, is it, Mr Sneyd? When Mr Copinger, our superintendent minister, mentioned it to me yesterday, I told him I was sure you would consent.”

“You did?”

“I did,” she said boldly.

“Well, I shanna’.”

Like many warm-hearted, impulsive and generous men, James Peake did not care that his generosity should be too positively assumed. To take it for granted was the surest way of extinguishing it. The pity was that Mrs Lovatt, in the haste of her zeal for the amelioration of divine worship at Bursley Chapel, had overlooked this fact. Peake’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.