"Devotion?" said Mr. Ascott. "Oh yes; he has done his work well enough, I suppose. That's what is called devotion when a man dies or goes away. Yes, oh yes, we may allow him the credit of that, the poor old fogey, but--yes, oh yes, a good old fellow enough. When you have said that, there's no more to say. Perhaps in the abstract it was a shame that Chester should have the lion's share of the income, and St. John all the work; but that's all over; and as for any hesitation of yours on his account----" "It may be foolish," said the young man, "but I do hesitate--I cannot help feeling that there is a great wrong involved--to Mr. St. John, of course, in the first place--but without even thinking of any individual, it is a sort of thing that must injure the Church; and I don't like to be the instrument of injuring the Church." "Tut--tut--tut!" said Mr. Ascott; "your conscience is too tender by far." "Mr. Mildmay," said the lady sweetly, "you must not expect me to follow such deep reasoning. I leave that to superior minds; but you ought to think what a great thing it is for a parish to have some one to look up to--some one the poor people can feel to be really their superior." "Not a poor beggar of a curate," cried her husband. "There, Adelaide! you have hit the right nail on the head. That's the true way to look at the subject. Poor old St. John! I don't say he's been well treated by destiny. He has had a deal of hard work, and he has stuck to it; but, bless you! how is a man like that to be distinguished from a Dissenting preacher, for instance? Of course, he's a clergyman, in orders and all that, as good as the Archbishop of Canterbury; but he has no position--no means--nothing to make him the centre of the parish, as the clergyman ought to be. Why, the poorest labourer in the parish looks down upon the curate. 'Parson's just as poor as we is,' they say. I've heard them. He has got to run up bills in the little shops, and all that, just as they have. He has no money to relieve them with when they're out of work. The farmers look down upon him. They think nothing of a man that's poor; and as for the gentry----" "Stop, Henry," said Mrs. Ascott; "the gentry have always been very kind to the St. Johns. We were always sorry for the girls. Poor things! their mother was really quite a lady, though I never heard that she had anything. We were all grieved about this last sad affair, when he married the governess; and I should always have made a point of being kind to the girls. That is a very different thing, however, Mr. Mildmay," she added, with a sweet smile, "from having a clergyman whom one can really look up to, and who will be a friend and neighbour as well as a clergyman. You will stay to luncheon? I think I hear the bell." CHAPTER XIII. WHAT THE GIRLS COULD DO.