to somebody?"
"All the windows are taken up. My congregation is so very good."
"A memorial brass then?"
He mused.
"There is only one of my flock who has done anything memorable lately."
My heart gave a great leap of joy. "Then why do you neglect him?" I asked indignantly. "If we do not perpetuate the memory of virtue——"
"He's alive," he interrupted.
I bit my lips in vexation.
"I think you need a few more choristers," I murmured.
"Oh no, we are sending some away."
"The Sunday School Fund—how is that?"
"I am looking about for a good investment for the surplus. Do you know of any? A good mortgage, perhaps?"
"Is there none on the church?" I cried with a flicker of hope.
"Heaven forbid!"
I cudgelled my brains frantically.
"What do you think of a lightning-rod!"
"A premier necessity. I never preach in a building unprotected by one."
I made one last wild search.
"How about a reredos?"
He looked at me in awful, pained silence.
I saw I had stumbled. "I—I mean a new wing," I stammered.
"I am afraid you are not well this morning," said the preacher, patting my hand soothingly. "Won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is, another time?"
"No, no," I cried excitedly. "It must be settled at once. I have it. A new peal of bells!"
"What is the matter with the bells?" he asked anxiously. "There isn't a single one cracked."
I saw his dubiety, and profited by it. I learnt afterwards it was due to his having no ear of his own.
"Cracked! Perhaps not," I replied in contemptuous accents. "But they deserve to be. No wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going on the subject."
"Yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all."
"I don't wonder," I said. "I don't say your bells are worse than the majority, or that I haven't got a specially sensitive ear for music, but I know that when I hear their harsh clanging, I—well I don't feel inclined to go to church and that's the truth. I am quite sure if you had a really musical set of chimes, it would increase the spirituality of the neighborhood."
"How so?" he asked sceptically.
"It would keep down swearing on Sunday."
"Oh!" He pondered a moment, then said: "But that would be a great expense."
"Indeed? I thought bells were cheap."
"Certainly. Area bells, hand-bells, sleigh-bells. But Church-bells are very costly. There are only a few foundries in the kingdom. But why are you so concerned about my church?"
"Because I am giving a Charity Concert, and I should like to devote the proceeds to something."
"A very exemplary desire. But I fear one bell is the most you could get out of a Charity Concert."
I looked disappointed. "What a pity! It would have been such a nice precedent to improve the tone of the Church. The 'constant readers' would have had to cease their letters."
"No, no, impossible. A 'constant reader' seems to be so called because he is a constant writer."
"But there might have been leaders about it."
"Hardly sensational enough for that! Stay I have an idea. In the beautiful Ages of Faith, when a Church-bell was being cast, the pious used to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in the furnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. A mediæval practice is always so poetical. Perhaps I could revive it. My congregation is so very good."
"Good!" I echoed, clapping my hands. "But a Concert will not suffice—we shall need a Bazaar," said the preacher.
"Oh, but I must have a Concert!"
"Certainly Bazaars include Concerts."
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