On the next day she was summoned to help clean the theatre, which had
been rented for one night by the St. Andrew's vested choir, whose
members were to give a sacred concert. A rehearsal for this
entertainment was being held when Amarilly arrived.
"These surplices are all too long or too short for me," complained the
young tenor, who had recently been engaged for the solo parts.
Amarilly surveyed him critically.
"He's jest about Mr. St. John's size," she mused, "only he ain't so fine
a shape."
With the thought came an inspiration that brought a quickly waged
battle. It seemed sacrilegious, although she didn't express it by that
word, to permit another to wear a garment so sacred to the memory of Mr.
Meredith, but poverty, that kill-sentiment, had fully developed the
practical side of Amarilly.
She made answer to her stabs of conscience by action instead of words,
going straight to her friend, the ticket-seller.
"That feller," she said, indicating the tenor, "ain't satisfied with the
fit of his surplus. I've got one jest his size. It's done up spick and
span clean, and I'll rent it to him fer the show. He kin hev it fer the
ev'nin' fer a dollar. Would you ask him fer me?"
"Certainly, Amarilly," he agreed.
He came back to her, smiling.
"He'll take it, but he seems to think your charge rather high--more than
that of most costumers, he said."
"This ain't no common surplus," defended Amarilly loftily. "It was wore
by the rector of St. Mark's, and he give it to me. It's of finer stuff
than the choir surpluses, and it hez got a cross worked onto it, and a
pocket in it, too."
"Of course such inducements should increase the value," confirmed Mr.
Vedder gravely, and he proceeded to hold another colloquy with the
twinkling-eyed tenor. Amarilly went home for the surplice and received
therefor the sum of one dollar, which swelled the Jenkins's purse
perceptibly.
And here began the mundane career of the minister's surplice.