"I," said Cicely aghast. "Oh, if I could only see a little in advance, if I could tell what to do myself!" "You cannot slide out of it like this," he said; "nay, pardon me, I don't mean to be unkind; but what am I to do?" Cicely looked at him with a rapid revulsion of feeling from indignation to friendliness. "Oh," she cried, "can't you fancy how a poor girl, so helpless as I am, is driven often to say a great deal more than she means? What can we do, we girls?--say out some of the things that choke us, that make our hearts bitter within us, and then be sorry for it afterwards? that is all we are good for. We cannot go and do things like you men, and we feel all the sharper, all the keener, because we cannot _do_. Mr. Mildmay, all that I said was quite true; but what does that matter? a thing may be wrong and false to every principle, and yet it cannot be helped. You ought not to have the living; papa ought to have it; but what then? No one will give it to papa, and if you don't take it some one else will; therefore, take it, though it is wicked and a cruel wrong. It is not your fault, it is--I don't know whose fault. One feels as if it were God's fault sometimes," cried Cicely; "but that must be wrong; the world is all wrong and unjust, and hard--hard; only sometimes there is somebody who is very kind, very good, who makes you feel that it is not God's fault, and you forgive even the world." She put up her hand to wipe the tears from those young shining eyes, which indignation and wretchedness and tears only made the brighter. Cicely was thinking of the butcher--you will say no very elevated thought. But Mildmay, wondering, and touched to the heart, asked himself, with a suppressed throb of emotion, could she mean him? "I am going back to Oxford," he said hastily. "I shall not go to town. The first thing I do will be to see everybody concerned, and to tell them what you say. Yes, Miss St. John, you are right; it is wicked and wrong that I or any one should have it while your father is here. I will tell the Master so, I will tell them all so. It shall not be my fault if Mr. St. John does not have his rights." They were close to the rectory gate, and as fire communicates to fire, the passionate impulse and fervour of Cicely's countenance had transferred themselves to Mr. Mildmay, whose eyes were shining, and his cheeks flushed with purpose like her own. Cicely was not used to this rapid transmission of energy. She gazed at him half frightened. Usually her interlocutor did all that was possible to calm her down--wondered at her, blamed her a little, chilled her vehemence with surprised or disapproving looks. This new companion who caught fire at her was new to the girl. She was half alarmed at what she had done.