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“Then perhaps you saw the plate? I know by your face that you did! You saw the sixpences, which I shall never forget, and the pennies, which I will never forgive! I thirst for the blood of those who put in pennies!”

“They would all have been sitting in boiling oil since Friday if I had had my way,” responded Appleton.

Tommy laughed delightedly. “I know now who put in the sovereign! I knew every face in that audience–that wasn’t difficult in so small a one–and I tried and tried to fix the sovereign on any one of them, and couldn’t. At last I determined that it was the old gentleman who went out in the middle of ‘Allan Water,’ feeling that he would rather pay anything than stay any longer. Confess! it was you!”

Appleton felt very sheepish as he met Tommy’s dancing eyes and heightened color.

“I couldn’t bear to let you see those pennies,” he stammered, “but I couldn’t get them out before the page came to take the plate.”

“Perhaps you were ‘pound foolish,’ and the others were ‘penny wise,’ but it was awfully nice of you. If I can pay my bill here without spending that sovereign, I believe I’ll keep it for a lucky piece. I shall be very rich by Saturday night, anyway.”

“A legacy due?”

“Goodness, no! I haven’t a relation in the world except one, who disapproves of me; not so much as I disapprove of him, however. No, Albert Spalding and Donald Tovey have engaged me for a concert in Torquay.”

“I have some business in Torquay which will keep me there for a few days on my way back to Wells,” said Appleton nonchalantly. (The bishop’s letter had been a pure and undefiled source of information on all points.)

“Why, how funny! I hope you’ll be there on Saturday. There’ll be no plate! Tickets two and six to seven and six, but you shall be my guest, my sovereign guest. I am going to Wells myself to stay till–till I make up my mind about a few things.”

“America next?” inquired Appleton, keeping his voice as colorless as possible.

“I don’t know. Helena made me resign my church position in Brooklyn, and for the moment my ‘career’ is undecided.”

She laughed, but her eyes denied the mirth that her lips affirmed, and Appleton had such a sudden, illogical desire to meddle with her career, to help or hinder it, to have a hand in it at any rate, that he could hardly hold his tongue.

“The Torquay concert will be charming, I hope. You know what Spalding’s violin-playing is, and Donald Tovey is a young genius at piano-playing and composing. He is going to accompany me in some of his own songs, and he wants me to sing a group of American ones–Macdowell, Chadwick, Nevin, Mrs. Beach, and Margaret Lang.”

“I hope you’ll accompany yourself in some of your own ballads!”

“No, the occasion is too grand; unless they should happen to like me very much. Then I could play for myself, and sing ‘Allan Water,’ or ‘Believe Me,’ or ‘Early One Morning,’ or ‘Barbara Allen.'”

(Appleton wondered if a claque of sizable, trustworthy boys could be secured in Torquay, and under his intelligent and inspired leadership carry Miss Thomasina Tucker like a cork on the wave of success.)

“Wouldn’t it be lunch-time?” asked Miss Tucker, after a slight pause.

“It is always time for something when I’m particularly enjoying myself,” grumbled Appleton, looking at his watch. “It’s not quite one o’clock. Must we go in?”

“Oh, yes; we’ve ten minutes’ walk,”–and Tommy scrambled up and began to brush sand from her skirts.

“Couldn’t I sit at your table–under the chaperonage of the Bishop of Bath and Wells?” And Appleton got on his feet and collected Tommy’s books.

The girl’s laugh was full-hearted this time. “Certainly not,” she said. “What does Bexley Sands know of the bishop and his interest in us? But if you can find the drawing-room utterly deserted at any time, I’ll sing for you.”