She had dropped her English shilling into the plate instead of the quarter! Her precious talisman from the bride's cake, that she had carried as a pocket piece ever since Eugenia's wedding.
Betty, who sat next to her, was the only one who saw her confusion, and her sudden movement towards the plate after it passed.

She glanced at her curiously, wondering at her agitation, but the next moment forgot it in listening to the wonderful voice that took up the solo.
But the solo, as far as Mary was concerned, might have been a siren whistle or a steam calliope.

She was watching the man of the bald head and the double chins, who had walked off with her shilling.

Down the central aisle went the pompous gentleman at last in company with two others, and the three plates were received by the rector and blessed and deposited on the altar, all in the most deliberate fashion, while Mary twisted her fingers and thought of desperate but impossible plans to rescue her shilling.
If she had been alone she would have hurried to the front at the close of the service, and watched to see who became the custodian of the alms.
Then she could have pounced upon him and begged to be allowed to rectify her mistake.

But Phil and the girls would think she had lost her mind if they should see her do such a thing, unless she explained to them.
Somehow she shrank from letting anybody know how highly she valued that shilling.