'Nothing is right without Aunt Milly!' cried Polly, with a squeeze; and Roy chimed in, indignantly, 'Of course not; as though we could do without Aunt Milly!' The new curate was discussed the first evening. Mr. Lambert and Richard were loud in their praises; and though Chriss muttered to herself in a surly undertone, nobody minded her. His introduction to Olive happened after a somewhat amusing fashion. He was crossing the hall the next day, on his way to the vicar's study, when Roy bade him go into the drawing-room and make acquaintance with Aunt Milly. It happened that Mildred had just left the room, and Olive was sitting alone, working. She looked up a little surprised at the tall, broad-shouldered young man who was making his way across the room. 'Royal told me I should find you here, Miss Lambert. I hope your niece has recovered the fatigue of her journey.' 'I am not Aunt Milly; I am Olive,' returned the girl, gravely, but not refusing the proffered hand. 'You are my father's new curate, Mr. Marsden, I suppose?' 'Yes; I beg your pardon, I have made a foolish mistake I see,' returned the young man, confusedly, stammering and flushing over his words. 'Royal sent me in to find his aunt, and--and--I did not notice.' 'What does it matter?' returned Olive, simply. The curate's evident nervousness made her anxious to set him at his ease. 'You could not know; and Aunt Milly looks so young, and my illness has changed me. It was such a natural mistake, you see,' with the soft seriousness with which Olive always spoke now. 'Thank you; yes, of course,' stammered Hugh, twirling his felt hat through his fingers, and looking down at her with a sort of puzzled wonder. The grave young face under the quaint head-dress, the soft dark hair just parted on the forehead, the large earnest eyes, candid, and yet unsmiling, filled him with a sort of awe and reverence. 'You have been very ill,' he said at last, with a pitying chord in his voice. 'People do not look like that who have not suffered. You remind me,' he continued, sitting down beside her, and speaking a little huskily, 'of a sister whom I lost not so very long ago.' Olive looked up with a sudden gleam in her eyes. 'Did she die?' 'Yes. You are more fortunate, Miss Lambert; you were permitted to get well.' 'You are a clergyman, and you say that,' she returned, a little breathlessly. 'If it were not wrong I should envy your sister, who finished her work so young.' 'Hush, Miss Lambert, that is wrong,' replied Hugh. His brief nervousness had vanished; he was quite grave now; his round, boyish face, ruddy and brown with exercise, paled a little with his earnestness and the memory of a past pain. 'Caroline wanted to live, and you want to die,' he said, in a voice full of rebuke. 'She cried because she was young, and did not wish to leave us, and because she feared death; and you are sorry to live.'