"Worse than bankrupt," said the Curate: "there is a brother who takes everything. Will you stand by them--offer them shelter?--I mean for a time. I don't know anybody I should care to apply to but you." Miss Leonora paused and looked at her nephew. "First tell me what you have to do with them," she asked. "If there is a brother, he is their natural protector--certainly not you--unless there is something I don't know of. Frank, you know you can't marry," said Miss Leonora, with a little vehemence, once more looking in her nephew's face. "No," said Frank, with momentary bitterness; "I am not likely to make any mistake about that--at present, at least. The brother is a reprobate of whom they know nothing. I have no right to consider myself their protector--but I am their friend at least," said the Curate, breaking off with again that softening in his voice. "They may have a great many friends, for anything I know; but I have confidence in you, aunt Leonora: you are not perhaps particularly sympathetic," he went on, with a laugh; "you don't condole with Louisa, for instance; but I could trust you with--" "Lucy Wodehouse!" said Miss Leonora; "I don't dislike her at all, if she would not wear that ridiculous grey cloak; but young men don't take such an interest in young women without some reason for it. What are we to do for you, Frank?" said the strong-minded woman, looking at him with a little softness. Miss Leonora, perhaps, was not used to be taken into anybody's confidence. It moved her more than might have been expected from so self-possessed a woman. Perhaps no other act on the part of her nephew could have had so much effect, had he been able to pursue his advantage, upon the still undecided fate of Skelmersdale. "Nothing," said the Curate. He met her eye very steadily, but she was too clear-sighted to believe that he felt as calmly as he looked. "Nothing," he repeated again--"I told you as much before. I have been slandered here, and here I must remain. There are no parsonages or paradises for me."