Isabel giggled suddenly.  “Never mind, darling, I’ll help you with your sermon.  Whereabouts are you?  Oh!—­’I need not tell you, my friends, the story we all know so well’—­Jim, that’s what my tutor calls ‘Redundancy and repetition.’  You know quite well you’re going to tell us every word of it.  Darling take its little pen and cross it out—­so—­with its own nasty little cross-nibbed J—­”

“What do you mean by saying you want money,” Mr. Stafford hurriedly changed the subject, “and how much do you want?  The butcher’s bill came to half a sovereign this week, and I must keep five shillings to take to old Hewitt—­”

“I want pounds and pounds.”

“My dear!” said Mr. Stafford aghast.  He took off his spectacles to polish them, and then as he put them on again, “If it’s for that Appleton boy I really can’t allow it.  There’s nothing whatever wrong with him but laziness”

“It isn’t for Appleton.  It’s for me myself.”  Isabel sat up straight, a little flushed.  “I’m growing up.  Isn’t it a nuisance?  I want a new dress!  I did think I could carry on till the winter, but I can’t.  Could you let me have enough to buy one ready-made?  Chapman’s have one in their window that would fit me pretty well.  It’s rather dear, but somehow when I make my own they never come right.  And Rowsley says I look like a scarecrow, and even Val’s been telling me to put my hair up!”

“Put your hair up, my child?  Why, how old are you?  I don’t like little girls to be in a hurry to turn into big ones”

“I’m not a little girl,” said Isabel shortly.  “I’m nineteen.”

“Nineteen? no, surely not!”

“Twenty next December.”

“Dear me!” said Mr. Stafford, quite overcome.  “How time flies!” He set her down from his knee and went to his cash box.  “If Val tells you to put your hair up, no doubt you had better do it.”  He paused.  “I don’t know whether Val said you ought to have a new frock, though?  I can’t bear spending money on fripperies when even in our own parish so many people—­” Some glimmering perception reached him of the repressed anguish in Isabel’s eyes.  “But of course you must have what you need.  How much is it?”

“1. 11. 6.”

“Oh, my dear!  That seems a great deal.”

“It isn’t really much for a best dress,” said poor Isabel.

“But you mustn’t be extravagant, darling,” said Mr. Stafford tenderly.  “I see other girls running about in little cotton dresses or bits of muslin or what not that look very nice—­much nicer on a young girl than ‘silksand fine array.’  Last time Yvonne came to tea she wore a little frock as simple as a child’s”

“She did,” said Isabel.  “She picked it up in a French sale.  It was very cheap—­only 275 francs.”

“Eleven pounds!” Mr. Stafford held up his hands.  “My dear, are you sure?”