"It is my own college, too," he said reflectively; "and I suppose I am now one of the oldest members of it. It would not be amiss if they let me stay here the rest of my days. But I never was distinguished. I never was a Fellow, or anything. I never could push myself forward. No--we must just wait and see what is going to happen. A few days or a few weeks will make little difference. Compose yourselves, my dears," said Mr. St. John. "I am not very anxious after all." "I wonder if he would be anxious if you were all starving," cried Miss Maydew, as the girls walked with her to the station in the evening. "Oh, Cicely, I know I oughtn't to say anything to you about your papa. But if he has not been anxious, others have been anxious for him. Your poor mother! how she slaved to keep everything as it ought to be; and even poor Miss Brown. It did not cost much to marry her--but it cost her her life." "Aunt Jane!" cried both the girls indignant. "Well, my dears! She might have been living now, a respectable single woman, doing her duty, as she was capable of doing; instead of which what must she do but bring a couple of white-faced babies into the world that nobody wanted, and die of it. Yes, she did die of it. You don't understand these things--you are only children. And all because he was what you call kind-hearted, and could not bear to see her cry, forsooth. As if the best of us were not obliged both to cry ourselves and to see others cry often enough! but they never thought what they were doing; and the ones to suffer will be you." "Aunt Jane, you ought not to speak so of papa." "I know I shouldn't, my dear--and I humbly beg your pardons," said Aunt Jane, drying her eyes. "And we ought not to have left him unprotected," said Cicely, with a sigh. CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW RECTOR.