With faces so flushed with happiness, and shame, and pride, that now and then it really seemed as if little flames of light were flickering over them, Sybilla and her husband walked up the matted aisle. Books and papers to sign--in an easy, off-hand style, resulting in illegibility. A congratulatory parson and a congratulatory clerk in the vestry, a congratulatory pew-opener at the door, and two congratulatory neighbors of hers in the church-porch--all to be rewarded for their congratulation, to say nothing of lawful charges; which rewards and charges were given with real cheerfulness. Home! John paused upon the last step at the church-gate, twirling in his fingers the last remaining sixpence of the coin he had placed at one end of his purse for such bestowal before starting, (impulse not being trustworthy with him in such cases, but quite the contrary,) and looked about for a recipient. A pale-faced little boy, with a good deal of inquisitive, apprehensive wonder in his gray eyes, stood leaning by the railings, in a white pinafore: it would have been difficult, however, to realize his existence _without_ a white pinafore. A bloodless little fellow, with a subdued quiet in his face, he seemed forever under injunction not to wake the baby, and a look of passive experience in his eyes, his whole appearance, from his collar to his boots, which had been inked round the lace-holes because they got brown there, imparted indescribable suggestions of bread-and-butter and nothing else; with, perhaps, a patient going to bed without that, now and then. Godwin looked painfully at the child as the child looked wonderingly at Sybilla, and, diving into his pocket, he took a shilling between his fingers, thought again, and substituted half-a-crown. This he gave the boy into one hand, and placed the sixpence in the other palm for _himself_. It was perfectly understood between them that the half-crown was for mother, who had inked the boots, and who could not afford to have the baby woke. Still, and though upon being bashfully thanked Godwin patted the bread-and-butter cheek as kindly and softly as any woman’s hand could have done it, the poor child could scarcely trust in the reality of his fortune, and went slowly sidling up by the church-yard rails, his eyes turned to the gay party, half in expectation of being called back; and it was not till he had watched them out of sight that he turned the corner and ran. Congratulatory parson, clerk, pew-opener and pew-opener’s neighbors--in the profoundest deeps of all and every their hearts there existed not a centillionth of the blessing and good-wishes that overflowed in that of the mother as she heard how her little son got the half-crown. It came to her in time of extremest need, and all day long she pondered the matter with unusual thankfulness; for, like a woman, she believed the giver had guessed her necessity by intuitive goodness. As for the sixpence, it was put aside in an old china cup--was