"If only one could see any way of paying them," she said; "if even we had been staying here! I had a plan, and we might have done it. And it brings it all so near, and makes it so certain, to see this man." "My love," said the curate remonstrating, "we knew that some one must come. It is not his fault. Why should we be unkind to him?" "Unkind! Oh papa!" cried Cicely in her exasperation, "what had we to do with him? It was not our business to feast him and pet him. But that is nothing," she said, trembling with excitement; "I will not blame you, papa, for that or anything, if only you will say now what you are going to do, or where you think we can go, or what I must say to these poor people. We cannot stay here and starve, or till they put us in prison--only tell me what we must do." "How can I tell you, Cicely," said the curate, "when I do not know myself? I must advertise or something," he said helplessly. "I am old, my dear. Few people want a curate of my age; I suppose it almost looks like a stigma on a man to be a curate at my age." "Papa!" Cicely stopped short in what she was going to say, and looked at him with strained and anxious eyes. She had meant to assail him for still being a curate, but his self-condemnation closed the girl's lips, or rather roused her in defence. "Yes," said Mr. St. John, "you may say I ought to have thought of that sooner; but when things go on for a long time one asks one's self why should not they go on for ever? 'He said, There will be peace in my time.' That was selfish of Hezekiah, my dear, very selfish, when you come to think of it. But I dare say it never seemed so to him, and neither did it to me." Cicely was utterly overpowered by this; her anger and impatience died out of her, and compunction and remorse rose in her heart. "That is not the right way to look at it," she said. "It is a shame that a man like you should only be a curate--oh, a shame to the Church and every one! Mr. Chester, who never was here, never did anything, what right had he to be the rector?--and this other person----" It was so necessary for poor Cicely in the disturbance of her mind to be angry with some one that naturally her wrath grew wild and bitter when she was free to pour it out upon strangers. "Hush! hush! my dear," said the curate, with a half smile at her vehemence; for indeed he was deeply relieved to have the tide of indignation turned away from himself. "Why should I hush, papa? It is your own college, you say; but they never take the trouble to ask who is at Brentburn, who has been taking the duty, who has looked after the people when the rector has been so long away. When people have the patronage of a parish in their hands, ought they not to know about it? And how did they dare, how did they venture, to give it to anybody but you?"