The Curate in Charge

sque Berkshire cottages, with high sloping roofs and aged harmonious mossy brick walls, and very new square houses in the bilious brick of modern use-mean and clean and angular. The cottages, with t

lf caused by exposure to the open air, and half by the dull routine in which their life is spent. Mildmay looked at them wistfully. Were they the kind of people among whom he could find the life he sought? A few

at us, no doubt, they were laughing. Anything above their own level, except money, they don't u

ron round him from his shop-door. "I thought perhaps as y

n a helpless, pitiful way, which his companion remarked wonderingly. T

y cart," said Wilkins, "to say a

id the curate anxiously. "I am occupied at present, as you

nk visibly; his knees and his elbows grew prominent. He did not speak again till they had got beyond the village. Then he drew breath, and his natural outline came slowly back. "You will find much hardness among the people," he said; "Heaven forbid that I should blame them, poor so

, simply as grocer, could have any power over a clergyman; more and more he felt convinced that some drama, some domestic tragedy, must be connected with the St. Johns, and he felt more and more eager to fin

readth of atmosphere! One feels oneself on the moors, in

I don't think that even the name of Wilkins would have discouraged him now. In the warm and balmy air he took off his hat, holding up his venerable bare head to the sky. It was a head which might have served for that of an old saint. His white hair was still thick and abundant, his eyes full of soft light, his expr

his companion's remarks had taken, but th

my intrusion has perhaps giv

re here as long as I have been you will know how pleasant it is to see a new face. We country folks rust: we fall into a fixed rout

een worn by his own feet, and he seldom concluded his evening

. May we go there before we go in? What a pity the church is so new

into the rectory garden, the ground slopes so much; the church is very much higher than the common. It used to be sweet to me, looking

re and more like a drama which was being played before him. He followed Mr. St. John along the narrow path to the little white stile which admitted to the churchyard. The curate ceased his tranquil talk as they entered that inclosure. He

en would have felt with anguish the unspeakable separation between the mother under the dews and the twinkle of the lights in her children's windows; but Mr. St. John was not of that mind. Yet, somehow, to have this stranger here made his loss seem fresher to him. "Cicely is very like her mother," he said, and touched the cross softly with his hand as if caressing it, and turned a

in his gentle unchanged voice, and quietly went on to the gate, leading the way. "Supper will be ready," the curate continued, when they emerged again upon the turf. "We live a very simple pri

ter in his mind that broke up the reverential respect of the previous moment, he followed his simple host into the house, which by-and-by was to be his own house. Poor Mrs. St. John, who was not the mother o

in one hand, and a pile of tradesmen's books in the other. She was pale, her look fixed, her nostrils a little dilated, like some one going to a painful task, he thought. As she moved down the dark staircase, a speck of light, with her candle shining on the whiteness of her face and dress, the walls, by which she flitted, looked more and more like the scenery of a drama to the young man. If they only would have opened, as in the real theatre, and shown him where she was going, what she was about to do! But this was very mean curiosity on Mr. Mildmay's part. He shut his door humbly, that she might not be disturbed by the sound, and after a while went meekly to bed, trying to say to himself that h

him. The room was good-sized, and full of huge mahogany bookcases; and as the table was at one end of it, there is no telling how full of gloom it was. One of the windows was open, and a great solid piece of darkness seemed to have taken its place, and to be pouring in. Mr. St. John was looking over some old sermons, bending his head over the papers, with spectacles upon his nose, which he took off when Cicely came in. He

nted to speak to me." He gave a little s

night air came in, and crept wistfully about the room, moving the curtains. When it approac

about the books. I don't know if you have looked at them lately. Oh, papa! do

ntly; "something, I know. Wilkins spoke

h! so many little people. How are they ever to be paid? When I looked over the books to-day

ame. We were not like your mother, my dear; it all came natural to your mother; but she, or rather we--" Mr. St. John's voice sank into an indistinct confusion. He was too good to blame the poor woman wh

e had been staying here! I had a plan, and we might have done it. An

we knew that some one must come. It is not

" she said, trembling with excitement; "I will not blame you, papa, for that or anything, if only you will say now what you are going to do, or where yo

rtise or something," he said helplessly. "I am old, my dear. Few people want a curate

strained and anxious eyes. She had meant to assail him for still being a curate,

sks one's self why should not they go on for ever? 'He said, There will be peace in my time.' That was selfish of Hezekiah

me that a man like you should only be a curate-oh, a shame to the Church and every one! Mr. Chester, who never was here, never did anything, what right had he to be the rector?-and this other pe

le at her vehemence; for indeed he was deeply relieved

en taking the duty, who has looked after the people when the rector has been so long away. When people have the patronage of a pa

to people who have distinguished themselves. The dons have no right to alienate a living,

nd Greek-which will do a great deal in the parish, don't you

ch, my dear," said the c

id not feel himself shrink even within his four pillars and moreen curtains.) "He knows about art if you please, and shudders at the sight of Mr. Chester'

nd in the circumstances he felt it no harm to speak a little more strongly than he felt. He looked round upon the ghostly room so dark in all its corners. "A great many th

really come about? He will give you some little time, I suppose. But papa, papa!" said Cicely, with a stamp of her foot to emphasize her words, "don't you see you must dec

" said poor St. John; "I acknowle

nd some people can't," said Cicely, with that mercy and toleration which are always, I fear, more or le

able head piteously. "What d

ltogether; even their father felt they had no right to be there in his daughters' way. He went in, shading his candle with his hand, not to disturb the slumbers of Annie, the little nursemaid, and approached the two little cots on tip-toe, and looked at the two little white faces on the pillows. "Poor little things," he said to himself. Miss Brown was well out of it; she had escaped all this trouble, and could not be called to account, either for

things to do. This was the first time he had ever seen domestic business of a homely kind done by a lady, and my dilettante was utterly annoyed at himself, when he found that, instead of being hurt and wounded by the sight, he liked it! Terrible confession! He went up and down the garden walks, pretending to himself that he was enjoying the fresh air of the morning, but actually peeping, spying, at the windows, watching Miss St. John arrange the breakfast. She had not seen him, but, quite unconscious of observation, absorbed in her own thoughts, she went on with her occupation. There were more things to do than to put the table to rights, for Betsy's work was manifold, and did not admit of very careful housemaid work. Mr. Mildmay watched her for some time, coming and going; and then he became aware of another little scene which was going on still nearer to himself. Out from a side door came the two little boys, hand in hand, with their hats tied on, and overshadowing the little

said, "let us be frien

ed for this emergency, as their father was unprepared for the bigger emergency in which he found hims

understood as much about that quintessence of Oxford, and education and culture, as he did of them; they gazed at him with their four blue eyes exactly in a row. "Come, speak," he

her father. She had been pondering plans till her brain felt like a honeycomb, each cell holding some active notion. She paused a moment, all the pulses in her beginning to throb, and looked out upon the opportunity before h