When the rather nervous young rector had got well away with his sermon, and had begun to attract the serious attention of Mr. Tosswill and of Godfrey Radmore, Timmy very quietly drew out of his little, worn tweed coat a long sharp pin.  Wedging the Bible, as he hoped reverently, but undoubtedly very securely between his knees, he thrust the pin firmly in the middle of the faded, gilt-edged leaves of Nanna’s Bible, where there were already many curious little brown dots caused by similar punctures, the work of Nanna herself.

Having done this, Timmy carefully lifted the Bible from between his knees and let it fall open at the page the pin had found.  The text where the point rested ran as follows: 

  Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

His father’s eyes flickered for a moment and fixed themselves on Timmy with a worried, disturbed expression.  As a child he himself would have been sternly reproved for reading, even the Bible, during a sermon, but he supposed that Janet knew better than his own mother had done.  Timmy certainly loved Janet far, far more than he, John Tosswill, had loved his own good mother.  So he averted his eyes from his little son, and tried to forget all about him.

But John Tosswill did not know his Janet.  Though three off from Timmy, she had become aware that her son was bending over a very big, shabby-looking book, instead of sitting upright, listening sedately.  She gave him one glance, and Timmy, with a rather confused and guilty look, hurriedly shut Nanna’s Bible, and turned his mind to the sermon.  He had seen what he wanted to see; and further, he had made a mental note of the page and place.

At last the service was over, and the congregation streamed out of church.  Timmy hung back a little, behind his mother.  He did not wish her to see that he had Nanna’s Bible instead of his own, but she was far too full of her own exciting and anxious thoughts to give any attention to her little boy.  Rather to her surprise, she found her mind dwelling persistently on Enid Crofton.  It was at once a relief and a disappointment not to see the young widow’s graceful figure, and her heart ached when she saw the cloud come down over Jack’s face.

All at once she felt a detaining gesture on her arm, and turning, she found Miss Pendarth at her elbow.  They generally had a little talk after church, for it was often the only time in the week when these two, both in their several ways busy women, felt that they had a few minutes to spare for gossip.

“I wonder if you could come in to Rose Cottage for a minute?  I want to show you something which I think will interest you as much as it has me.”

Neither of them noticed that Timmy had crept up quite close and was listening eagerly.  In a village community the gossip holds a place apart, and Olivia Pendarth, though by no means popular with the young people of Old Place, nevertheless had her value as the source of many thrilling tales.