The Curate in Charge

establishments. There were some things which all the girls had to submit to, and some which bore especially on the Miss St. Johns, who ha

reless room, they used to lie down in those two little beds side by side and talk, often in the dark, for the lights had to be extinguished at ten o'clock. They had not spoken even to each other of their father's marriage. This unexpected event had shocked and bewildered them in the fantastic delicacy of their age. They could not bear to think of their father as so far descended from his ideal elevation, and shed secret tears of rage more than of sorrow when they thought of their mother thus superseded. But the event was too terrible for words, and nothing whatever was said of it between

too, I suppose. W

nd partly because it was within five minutes of ten. Then the candle was put out, and they jumped into their beds. On the whole, perhaps, it

ond of one's half-brothe

ays been cherishing the idea that when we were quite grown up, instead of going out for g

h Mrs. St. John? I don't see that the babies make m

gnant sigh, but having no a

other and you the sister, and I could have painted and you could have kept my house. I'll tell you what I should like," she continued, rai

it not

I am more tha

t me all point

id Cicely, with unsympathetic laughter; "yo

ave no feeling," she said. "Aunt Jane says I sh

icely, "you are not the

mediately to make new plans for themselves; for the youthful imagination seldom goes so far unguided except when character is very much developed; and the two were only unsettled, uneasy, not quite knowing what was to become of them; or rather, it was Cicely who felt the unsettledness and uneasiness as to her own future. Mab had never had any doubt about hers since she was ten years old. She had never seen any pictures to speak of, so that I cannot say she was a heaven-born painter, for she scarcely understood what that was. But she meant to draw; her pencil was to be her profession, though she scarcely knew how

did as well as you could; and the fact is, we have

, where Miss Blandy the elder sister sat in the mornings supervising and correcting everything, from the exercises to the characters of her pupils, found the h

figure is well put in, but her sky and her distance are terribl

great noise with the door. What she ought to have done was to have made a curtsy, put down the books softly by Miss Blandy's elbow, curtsied again, and left the r

" This was the most dreadful condemnation Miss Blandy ever uttered. "If their aunt does

ry yet appealing. Had Miss Blandy alone been in the seat of judgment, she would, I fear, have paid but little attention to this appeal; but the old drawing-master was gentle and kind, as old professors of the arts so often are (for Art is Humanity, I think, almost oftener than letters), and besides, the young petitioner was very pretty in her generous enthusiasm, which affected him both as a man and an artist. The first page at once gave him a guess as to the inexpediency of examining the last; and the old man perceived in a moment at once the mistake he had made, and the cause of i

h our business, if you please," he said benevolently, to leave time for Cicely and her dangerous volume to escape. Miss Blandy was vanquished by this stratagem, and Cicely, beginning to tremble at the thought of the danger she had escaped, withdrew very demurely, having first piled up on the tabl

ke us all off, young lady," he said; "you spare no one; but it is so clever that I forgive you; and by way of punishment you must work

said Mab, smitten with compunct

haking his head; "but, anyhow, keep it

ss Blandy in preference to returning to the rectory and being separated from her sister. Vague teaching of "English" and music is not so profitable as an unmistakable and distinct art like drawing; but it was better than setting out upon a strange world alone, or going back to be a useless inmate of the rectory. As teachers the girls were both worse off and better off than as pupils. They were worse off because it is a descent in the social scale to come down from the level of those who pay to be taught, to the level of those who are paid for teaching-curious though the paradox seems to be; and they were better off, in so far as they were free from some of the restrictions of school, and had a kind of independent standing. They were allowed to keep their large attic, the bare walls of which were now half covered by Mab's drawings, and which Cicely's instinctive art of household management made to look more cheery

said, moralizing; "why should we have so little

gooder-which we ought to be, if there is any t

g, and no balance on the other side to make up for it. Stay, though; she has very

s with each other every ten minutes, and were

re is papa, now; he is delightful, but he is trying. When one thinks how altered everything is-and those two l

decisively; "there is the sea, for one

sea, and never drowned people, or did anythi

gotten by the people who manage these things up above. And there is

he softest whispering cadence. The air was all musical, thrilled softly by this hush of subdued sound. It put away the sound of the band at Miss Robinson's ball out of the girls' hearts. And yet balls are pleasant things at eighteen, and when two young creatures, quite deprived of such pleasures, turn their backs thus upon the enchanted place where the others are dancing, it would be strange if a touch of forlorn sentiment did not make itself felt in their hearts,

should have had more pleasure, Mab. The people about would have asked us-a clergyman's daughters always ge

said Mab. "How could we ever have had ba

ver, that is a poor way of looking at it," said Cicely, giving a little toss to her head, as if to throw off such uneleva

ore troublesome than girls. They want to have tutors and things, and to go to the university; and then

t he is old. One does not like to say anything disagreeable about one's papa, but w

d Mab. "Everybody says he is a very good s

it will come to. I don't mean to teach them ourselves, for it is not much Latin I know,

Mrs. St. Joh

t. Mrs. St. John's name stopped everything; they could not discuss her, nor express their

s was their name for their former instructress, their present employer.

. "What if they are in full swing, with the 'Blue Danube' perhaps! I hate to

the window, where dancing shadows and figures were visible. They sighed, and they went into their garret, avoiding the tacit disapproval of Miss Blandy's good-night. She did not approve of twilight walks. Why should they want to go out just then like the tradespeople, a thing which ladies never

ent that we know them to be certainly gone, and inaccessible to all kindness. "Oh, poor Mrs. St. John!" said Mab, dropping a few natural tears. Cicely was more deeply affected. She was the eldest and had thought the most; as for the young artist, her feeling ran into the tips of her fingers, and got expansion there; but Cicely had no such medium. She went about mournfully all day long, and in the evening Mab

under her breath, lifting her eyes to the clear wis

self unjustly, as was natural, and mourned for the mystery of human shortsightedness as well as for Mrs. St. John. But I do not mean to say that this grief was very profound after the first sting, and after that startling impression of the impossibility of further intercourse was over. The girls went out quietly in the afternoon, and bought black stuff to make themselves mourning, and spoke to each other in low voices and grave tones. Their youthful vigour was subdued-they were overawed to feel as it were