"About Mrs. St. John? Poor woman, I have nothing to say against her--but she is taken away from the evil to come," said Miss Maydew. "No, no, it was not about Mrs. St. John I was thinking, it was about something much more serious. Not that anything could be more serious than a death; but in a worldly point of view!" "What is it?" they both said in a breath. The idea of news was exciting to them, even though, as was evident from their visitor's agitation, it was disagreeable news they were about to hear. Miss Maydew drew with much excitement from her pocket a copy of the _Times_, very tightly folded together to enable it to enter there, and opened it with trembling hands. "There it is! Oh, my poor, poor children! imagine my feelings--it was the very first thing I saw when I took up my paper this morning," she said. The girls did not immediately take in the full meaning of the intimation which they read with two startled faces close together over the old lady's shoulder. "At Castellamare, on the 15th July, the Rev. Edward Chester, Rector of Brentburn, Berks." "But we don't know him," said Mab, bewildered. Cicely, I think, had a remark of the same kind on her lips; but she stopped suddenly and clasped her hands together and gave a low cry. "Ah, _you_ understand, Cicely!" said Miss Maydew, wiping her forehead with her handkerchief; "now let us consult what is to be done. What is the date? I was so agitated I never thought of the date! The 15th. Oh, my dear, here is a fortnight lost!" "But what can be done?" said Cicely, turning a pathetic glance upon the old room which had seemed so melancholy to her yesterday, and the tons of mahogany which she had just been criticising. How kind, and friendly, and familiar they had become all at once; old, dear friends, who belonged to her no more. "Mr. Chester, the rector!" said Mab, with sudden apprehension. "Do you mean that something will happen to papa?" "There is this to be done," said the old lady, "your poor good father has been here for twenty years; the people ought to be fond of him--I do not know whether they are, for a parish is an incomprehensible thing, as your poor dear grandfather always used to say--but they ought to be; I am sure he has trudged about enough, and never spared himself, though I never thought him a good preacher, so far as that goes. But he ought to have a great many friends after living here for twenty years." "But, Aunt Jane, tell us, tell us--what good will that do?" "It might do a great deal if they would exert themselves. They might get up a petition, for instance--at once--to the Lord Chancellor; they might employ all their influence. It is not a rich parish, nor a large parish, but there are always gentry in it. Oh, a great deal might be done if only people would exert themselves! It is dreadful to think that a fortnight has been lost."