Mr. St. John smiled. "I need not make myself angry," he said, "for it is all sheer ignorance. The living is a college living. I don't know what your ideas are on the subject, but the Lord Chancellor has as much to do with it as you have. Cicely, let us have tea." Miss Maydew shrivelled up upon her chair. She sat very quiet, and did not say a word after this revelation. What she had done would have troubled her mind little; but that she had done nothing after risking so much was hard to bear. After this little ebullition, however, the curate fell back into his usual calm. He spoke to them in his ordinary way. His voice resumed its tranquil tone. He took his tea, which was a substantial meal, doing justice to the bread and butter, and on the whole showed signs of being more concerned for Mr. Chester than he was for himself. "I remember him at college--we were of the same college," he said; "but he always the richest, much the best off. How little that has to say to a man's happiness! Poor Chester was never happy; he might have been very well here. How much I have had to be thankful for here! but it was not his disposition. He was good-looking too when he was young, and did very well in everything. Any one would have said he had a far better chance for a happy life than I had." The gentle old man grew quite loquacious in this contrast, though he was in general the most humble-minded of men; and the two girls sat and listened, giving wondering glances at each other, and blushing red with that shame of affection which lively girls perhaps are particularly disposed to feel when their parents maunder. This sort of domestic criticism, even though unexpressed, was hard upon Mr. St. John, as upon all such feeble good men. His last wife had adored him at all times, as much when he was foolish as when he was wise. She would have given him the fullest adhesion of her soul now, and echoed every word he said; but the girls did not. They would have preferred to silence him, and were ashamed of his gentle self-complacency. And yet it was quite true that he felt himself a happier man than Mr. Chester, and higher in the scale of merit though not of fortune; and the calm with which he took this event, which was neither more nor less than ruin to him, was fine in its way. "But what are we to do, papa?" Cicely ventured to ask him, looking up into his face with big anxious eyes, as he took his last cup of tea. "My dear, we must wait and see," he said. "There is no very immediate hurry. Let us see first who is appointed, and what the new rector intends to do." "But, Mr. St. John, you are a very learned man--and if it is a college living"--suggested Miss Maydew.