Jill's Red Bag Part 18

"What have you done with it?"

"I've put it into our bag. Miss Falkner made us a red bag and all our tenth goes into it, and then I take it to Mr. Errington, and he's going to build a mission church on Chilton Common with it!"

Mona gasped, then she began to laugh.

"Hopeful Mr. Errington! I admire his ambition, but I fancy many years will roll by before that church is built!"

"I knew you would laugh," said Jill reproachfully.

"Well," said Mona, looking first at Jill and then at her pile of stones, "I always did say you children had the b.u.mp of invention. But I, with Mr. Arnold, will plead guilty of the charge of trespa.s.sing; and you must do the same, Captain Willoughby. What will you fine us, Jill? Five shillings? I think we cannot escape with less than that."

"Be merciful," pleaded Captain Willoughby. "If I had known this visit of ours would have entailed such a loss to my pocket, I would have kept a long way off from it!"

Jill looked perplexed.

"I don't want to get money out of people," she said, "but you really are trespa.s.sers, and it will be lovely for our bag!"

Mona took her purse out of her pocket, and put half a sovereign into her little sister's hand.

"There!" she said. "Run away and put that into your bag. It is for a good object. Now, Captain Willoughby, we must go back to the house. I promised to drive with Miss Webb at four o'clock, and it is that already."

Jill turned over the gold coin in amazement and delight. She thanked her sister effusively.

"I knew our bag would get on, I was sure it would," she said; and then she scampered back to the school-room, where Miss Falkner was teaching Jack how to arrange his stamps geographically in his stamp alb.u.m, and b.u.mps was looking admiringly on.

"Look!" she cried. "Mona has given this to me for our bag! Isn't it perfectly lovely."

She got plenty of sympathy from the school-room party. Miss Falkner had heard at last about "Bethel," but she had respected Jill's wish about it, and had never been there.

That evening when the children were in bed she sat by the open school-room window. Her thoughts were not sad ones, though she had had much in her life to make her sad. And when a slender figure in a black lace gown came across the dusky lawn and spoke to her, it was the young heiress's face that looked weary and troubled, not the governess's.

Miss Falkner looked up brightly.

"Isn't it a delicious evening?"

"Is it? Yes, I suppose so. I wish I enjoyed things as you do, Miss Falkner."

There was a little silence.

Then Mona sat on the low window-ledge and put her light shawl over her shoulders.

"I must have some one to talk to to-night, or I feel I shall go crazy, and I have come out of doors to get away from Miss Webb, because she is so cross with me."

Miss Falkner looked her sympathy but said nothing.

"Jill has altered a chapter in my life to-day, and I don't know whether I am glad or sorry."

"I hope she has done good, not harm," said Miss Falkner.

"From your standpoint--yes. From mine--I'm not so sure. I was about to yield to persuasion, when she interrupted us, but after her interruption, I--well I altered my mind. What a lot of bother one's memory gives one!"

"Sometimes it does."

Mona moved in her seat restlessly.

"Seven years ago, Miss Falkner, I quarrelled with some one that I liked very much. It was about a certain subject. It is strange that this week the same person and the identical subject have both cropped up again."

"I should say," said Miss Falkner, "that the coincident has occurred for a purpose."

"Yes, I knew you would say that." Then after a pause she said--

"Do you believe that prosperity is good or bad for one?"

"I think if we regard our wealth as a trust it will be good for us,"

said Miss Falkner.

Mona laughed a little bitterly.

"Of course. It is the same old story. People can't give because it's right to give. I hate being forced."

"No," said Miss Falkner gently. "It is only when we love the One to whom our wealth belongs that we love to give it back to Him."

"Then," said Mona, "I must love first, before I can give."

She rose, then looked a little wistfully at the young governess.

"Sometimes I wish I could change places with you," she said, and before Miss Falkner could make any reply she slipped away.

IX

TRYING TO BE "DOUBLE GOOD"

"Are you going away?"

It was Jack who spoke, and who stood at the door of Captain Willoughby's room, looking at the half-filled portmanteaus, and the general chaos of a man's quarters when he is on the point of departure. It was before breakfast, and being a rainy morning, Jack was wandering about the pa.s.sages seeking for some occupation.

Captain Willoughby looked up from his employment. He was vainly trying to strap a Gladstone bag, and was muttering imprecations under his breath.

"Now then, young shaver, what do you want? You children are always turning up when you aren't desired. I have to thank your small sister yesterday for an interruption which proved disastrous!"

Jack edged himself in, and climbed up to the iron foot-rail of the bed, where he sat swinging his legs.

"Why are you going?"

"You didn't really think I had taken up my quarters here for good and all, did you?"