After waiting until the minister left the vestry Daniel found that Jessica had gone away by the side entrance. He had to wait, therefore, until Wednesday morning for an opportunity to speak to her, and the sight of her pinched little face was welcome to him when he saw it looking wistfully over the coffee-stall. Yet he had made up his mind to forbid her to come again, and to threaten her with the policeman if he ever caught her at the chapel, where for the future he intended to keep a sharper lookout. But before he could speak Jess had slipped under the stall and taken her old seat upon the upturned basket.

“Mr. Daniel,” she said, “has God paid you for my sups of coffee yet?”

“Paid me?” he repeated, “God? No.”

“Well, he will,” she answered, nodding her head sagely; “don’t you be afraid for your money, Mr. Daniel; I’ve asked him a many times, and the minister says he’s sure to do it.”

“Jess,” said Daniel, sternly, “have you been and told the minister about my coffee-stall?”

“No,” she answered, with a beaming smile, “but I’ve told God lots and lots of times since Sunday, and he’s sure to pay in a day or two.”

“Jess,” continued Daniel, more gently, “you’re a sharp little girl, I see; and now, mind, I’m going to trust you. You’re never to say a word about me or my coffee-stall; because the folks at our chapel are very grand, and might think it low and mean of me to keep a coffee-stall. Very likely they’d say I mustn’t be chapel-keeper any longer, and I should lose a deal of money.”

“Why do you keep the stall then?” asked Jessica.

“Don’t you see what a many pennies I get every morning?” he said, shaking his canvas bag. “I get a good deal of money that way in a year.”

“What do you want such a deal of money for?” she inquired; “do you give it to God?”

Daniel did not answer, but the question went to his heart like a sword-thrust. What did he want so much money for? He thought of his bare and solitary room, where he lodged alone, a good way from the railway-bridge, with very few comforts in it, but containing a desk, strong, securely fastened, and in which were his savings’ bank book, his receipts for money put out at interest, and a bag of sovereigns, for which he had been toiling and slaving both on Sunday and week-days. He could not remember giving any thing away, except the dregs of the coffee and the stale buns for which Jessica was asking God to pay him. He coughed, and cleared his throat, and rubbed his eyes; and then, with nervous and hesitating fingers, he took a penny from his bag and slipped it into Jessica’s hand.

“No, no, Mr. Daniel,” she said; “I don’t want you to give me any of your pennies. I want God to pay you.”

“Ay, he’ll pay me,” muttered Daniel; “there’ll be a day of reckoning by and by.”

“Does God have reckoning days?” asked Jessica. “I used to like reckoning days when I was a fairy.”

“Ay, ay,” he answered, “but there’s few folks like God’s reckoning days.”

“But you’ll be glad; wont you?” she said.

Daniel bade her get on with her breakfast, and then he turned over in his mind the thoughts which her questions had awakened. Conscience told him he would not be glad to meet God’s reckoning day.

“Mr. Daniel,” said Jessica, when they were about to separate, and he would not take back his gift of a penny, “if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to come and buy a cup of coffee to-morrow, like a customer, you know; and I wont let out a word about the stall to the minister next Sunday. Don’t you be afraid.”

She tied the penny carefully into a corner of her rags, and with a cheerful smile upon her thin face she glided from under the shadow of the bridge and was soon lost to Daniel’s sight.