The Curate in Charge

out feeling in his very soul the horror of the moment when he should have to say to her that he had no further need for her services. To say it to Hannah in the kitch

th his hands under his coat-tails; while little Miss Brown, generally a step or two behind, came trotting after him with her small steps, propounding little theological questions or moral doubts upon which she would like to have his opinion. The evening stillness, the shadowy, soft gloom about, the mild, grey mist of imperfect vision that made everything dreamy and vague, suited him better than the light and colour of the day. As he wandered on, in perfect repose and ease, with the two flitting figures before him, darting from side to side of the road, and from bush to bush of the common, their voices sounding like broken l

respect by the name of St. John. Almost an excitement arose in that quiet, respectable neighbourhood, penetrating even into those stately houses in Russell Square, at two or three of which Miss Maydew visited. "Two very sweet girls, the daughters of a clergyman, the sort of girls whom it would be an advantage to any establishment to receive," Miss Maydew's friend said; and the conclusion was, that the old lady found "vacancies" for her nieces in the most unexpected way in a school of very high pretensions indeed, which gladly accepted, on lower terms than usual, girls so well recommended, and with so well-sounding a name. She wrote with triumph in her heart to their father as soon as she had arrived at this summit of her wishes, and, I need not say, carried despair to his. But even after he had received two or three warnings, Mr. St. Joh

the sight of his evident emotion. The girls believed that this emotion was called forth by the idea of parting with them; they did

m your aunt Jane. I am afraid it will take you by surpri

s Brown, who had been ruling her copybooks very nicely, acknowledging Mr.

aunt is that kind of woman. She means to be very kind to you, my

the governess; as she had sprung up to defend her sister, when Miss Maydew saw her first. At that age Cicely was easily moved to indignation, and started forward perhap

ark to your aunt; but it is very difficult to struggle against the impetuosity of a

Mab. "I shall die, and Cicely will

indeed you must not say so. What could I say to your aunt? She means to give you all she has

a word to us, or to Miss Brown? Oh, papa, I could not have believed it of you! I hate Aunt Jane! Miss Brown,

ren. There is no fault at all in the matter," she continued, turning with that magnanimity of the aggrieved which is so terrible to an offender, to Mr. St. John. "Perhaps it is a little sudden; perhaps a person so fond of the girls as I am might have been expected t

nk badly of me," he said. "You can't

e must not enter into such questions," she said; "if you will

gitation of mind instead of the other formula he had rehearsed about having no further need for her services. All this Miss Brown received with the pale smiling of the injured and magnanimous; while the girls looked fiercely on their father, leaving him alone and

kept up that smile of magnanimous meekness all day. She would not give in. "No, my dears," she said, "there is nothin

d Cicely; "it is that

en, that is all; and we must not make mountains out of mole-hills, my dears." But she, too, retired to her room early, where, sitt

r wrath alike and their emotion at this thought. A thrill of awe, of fear, of delicious curiosity and wonder ran through them. This checked upon their very lips those reproaches which they had been pouring forth, addressed to their father and to Aunt Jane. Would they be miserable after all? should not they, rather, on the whole, like it, if it was not wrong to say

that they should have new Sunday frocks, and engaged the parish dressmaker for a week, and went herself to town to buy the stuff, after the girls and she had spent an anxious yet not unpleasant afternoon in looking over patterns. All this she did, and never a word of murmur escaped her lips. She was a heroic woman. And the busy days pursued each other so rapidly that the awful morning came, and the girls weeping, yet not uncheerful, were swept away by the "fly" from the station-where Miss Maydew, red and excited, met them, and carried them off remorseless on their further way-before any one had time to breathe, much less to think. Mr. St. John went to the station with his daughters, and coming back alone and rather sad, for the first time forgot Miss Brown; so that when he heard a low sound of the piano in the schoolroom he was half frightened, and, witho

e tone of a self-condemned criminal, "

ve written to the Governesses' Institution, Mr. St. J

on! Is that the only place

e, excuse me, I have got so fo-fond of them. I never meant to cry. It is in Harley Street, Mr. St. J

d her eyelids to keep the tears away. Oh, why couldn't he go away, and let her have her cry out? But he did not do that. He stopped short at the table where sh

nfusion run all over her at such a suggestion. "Oh, no, no," she cried, "you are very kind, Mr. St. John, but

thinking of. The Governesses' Institution sounded miserable to him, and what could he do? "Miss Brown," he said in

St. J

. "After being here for years, how can you go to a Governesses' In

he must have been a victim of despairing love for her all this time, and that the school-going of the girls was but a device for bringing out his passion. But Mr.

surprise, and to the still greater surprise and consternation of the curate himself, and of the parish, who could not believe their ears. I need not say that Miss Maydew was absolutely furious, or that it was a great shock to Cicely and Mab when they were told what had happened.

ther of them, and again subject as before to the advice of all the parish. They counselled him this time "a good nurse," not a governess; but fortunately other actors appeared on the scene before he had time to see the excellent creature whom Mrs. Brockmill, of Fir Tree House, knew of. While he listened hopelessly, a po