The little church had no vestry, and but one door, so the minister and congregation all entered from the front. Just within the door there was a small partition, and a folding door to keep the draught off the congregation during the assembling, and conspicuously in front of that, and facing the outer door, stood a three-legged stool bearing a big pewter plate for contributions. The contents of this plate were in general so scanty that they might easily have been counted by the eye, but occasionally, during the summer, visitors from the city would drop into the little place and leave in the plate a practical proof of their interest in the struggling church. After the services, it was the duty of the deacon or deacons to count the collection and place the sum to the credit of the general fund of the church. The minister or missionary, Arthur Morrison by name, was a young man with a wife and two children, who was struggling vainly to exist upon £55 a year. He had striven hard, but had so far failed that he was considerably in debt to different tradesmen about the town. He could scarcely be blamed for that, for his wife was a delicate woman, and most of the expenses had been forced upon him on her account. There was little prospect of his position in that town improving, as only a part of his salary was made up by the church, the rest being a grant from the main body; and as he was a quiet mild fellow, with no great energy or ability, there was little chance of him being sought after by a richer congregation. The poor fellow, however, seemed very earnest and sincere, and to love the work, and had never uttered a word of complaint to one of his people during the three years he had been among them. That was the position when an incident occurred, so curious and so strange in its results, that it is necessary to put it down minutely, and exactly as it was afterwards narrated by the chief witness in the case, the deacon himself. It was immediately before the morning service, and the congregation had nearly all assembled. The Rev. Arthur Morrison had not arrived, but an agreeable incident had kept the deacon who stood at the plate from noting the fact. A lady, evidently a summer visitor of wealth, had put a bank note into the plate, and asked to be shown to a seat as graciously as if she had been in the finest cathedral in the world.