Mildmay left the house of the Ascotts hurriedly at this intimation. He thought them pleasant people enough--for who does not think those people pleasant who flatter and praise him?--but he would not allow himself to be persuaded out of his determination to return to the rectory. I must add however that his mind was in a more confused state than ever as he skirted the common by the way the curate had taken him on the previous night. There were two sides to every question; that could not be gainsaid. To leave Brentburn after passing twenty years here in arduous discharge of all the rector's duties, but with the rank and remuneration only of the curate, was an injury too hard to contemplate to Mr. St. John; but then it was not Mildmay's fault that he should interfere at his own cost to set it right. It was not even the fault of the parish. It was nobody's fault but his own, foolish as he was, neglecting all chances of "bettering himself." If a man would do nothing for himself, how could it be the duty of others, of people no way connected with him, scarcely knowing him, to do it for him? This argument was unanswerable; nothing could be more reasonable, more certain; and yet--Mildmay felt that he himself was young, that the rectory of Brentburn was not much to him one way or the other. He had wanted it as the means of living a more real life than that which was possible to him in his college rooms; but he had no stronger reason, no special choice of the place, no conviction that he could do absolute good here; and why should he then take so lightly what it would cost him nothing to reject, but which was everything to the curate? Then, on the other hand, there was the parish to consider. What if--extraordinary as that seemed--it did not want Mr. St. John? What if really his very poverty, his very gentleness, made him unsuitable for it? The argument seemed a miserable one, so far as the money went; but it might be true. The Ascotts, for instance, were the curate's friends; but this was their opinion. Altogether Mr. Mildmay was very much perplexed on the subject. He wished he had not come to see for himself, just as an artist has sometimes been sorry for having consulted that very troublesome reality, Nature, who will not lend herself to any theory. If he had come without any previous inspection of the place, without any knowledge of the circumstances, how much better it would have been! Whereas now he was weighed down by the consideration of things with which he had really nothing to do. As he went along, full of these thoughts, he met the old woman whom he had first spoken to by the duck-pond on the day before, and who had invited him to sit down in her cottage. To his surprise--for he did not at first recollect who she was--she made him a curtsy, and stopped short to speak to him. As it was in the full blaze of the midday sunshine, Mildmay would very gladly have escaped--not to say that he was anxious to get back to the rectory, and