The Curate in Charge. Oliphant Margaret

four walls for Leonardo, and Michel Angelo and Raphael and poor Andrea,” said the other. “How you forget! Besides, it is quite different. Hark! what was that?” she cried, putting up her hand.

      What it was soon became very distinctly evident – a feeble little cry speedily joined by another, and then a small weak chorus, two voices entangled together. “No, no; no ladies. Harry no like ladies,” mixed with a whimpering appeal to “papa, papa.”

      “Come and see the pretty ladies. Harry never saw such pretty ladies,” said the encouraging voice of Betsy in the passage.

      The girls looked at each other, and grew red. They had made up their minds about a great many things, but never how they were to deal with the two children. Then Betsy appeared at the door, pushing it open before her with the tea-tray she carried. To her skirts were hanging two little boys, clinging to her, yet resisting her onward motion, and carried on by it in spite of themselves. They stared at the new-comers with big blue eyes wide open, awed into silence. They were very small and very pale, with light colourless limp locks falling over their little black dresses. The girls on their side stared silently too. There was not a feature in the children’s faces which resembled their elder sisters. They were both little miniatures of Miss Brown.

      “So these are the children,” said Cicely, making a reluctant step forward; to which Harry and Charley responded by a renewed clutch at Betsy’s dress.

      “Yes, miss; them’s the children! and darlings they be,” said Betsy, looking fondly at them as she set down the tea. Cicely made another step forward slowly, and held out her hands to them; when the little boys set up a scream which rang through the house, and hiding their faces simultaneously in Betsy’s gown, howled to be taken away. Mab put up her hands to her ears, but Cicely, more anxious to do her duty, made another attempt. She stooped down and kissed, or tried to kiss the little tear-stained faces, to which caress each small brother replied by pushing her away with a repeated roar.

      “Don’t you take no notice, miss. Let ‘em alone and they’ll get used to you in time,” said Betsy.

      “Go away, go away! Harry no like ‘oo,” screamed the spokesman brother. No one likes to be repulsed even by a child. Cicely stumbled to her feet very red and uncomfortable. She stood ruefully looking after them as they were carried off after a good preliminary “shake,” one in each of Betsy’s red hands.

      “There is our business in life,” she said in a solemn tone. “Oh, Mab, Mab, what did papa want with these children? All the trouble of them will come on you and me.”

      Mab looked at her sister with a look of alarm, which changed, however, into laughter at sight of Cicely’s solemn looks and the dreary presentiment in her face.

      “You are excellent like that,” she said; “and if you had only seen how funny you all looked when the little demons began to cry. They will do for models at all events, and I’ll take to painting children. They say it’s very good practice, and nursery pictures always sell.”

      These lighter suggestions did not, however, console Cicely. She walked about the room with clasped hands and a very serious face, neglecting her tea.

      “Papa will never trouble himself about them,” she said half to herself; “it will all fall on Mab and me. And boys! that they should be boys. We shall never be rich enough to send them to the University. Girls we might have taught ourselves; but when you think of Oxford and Cambridge – ”

      “We can’t tell,” said Mab; “how do you know I shan’t turn out a great painter, and be able to send them wherever you like? for I am the brother and you are the sister, Ciss. You are to keep my house and have the spending of all my money. So don’t be gloomy, please, but pour out some tea. I wish, though, they were not quite so plain.”

      “So like their mother,” said Cicely with a sigh.

      “And so disagreeable; but it is funny to hear one speak for both as if the two were Harry. I am glad they are not girls. To give them a share of all we have I don’t mind; but to teach them! with those white little pasty faces – ”

      “One can do anything when one makes up one’s mind to it,” said Cicely with a sigh.

      At this moment the hall door opened, and after an interval Mr. St. John came in with soft steps. He had grown old in these last years; bowed down with age and troubles. He came up to his daughters and kissed them, laying his hand upon their heads.

      “I am very glad you have come home,” he said, in a voice which was pathetic in its feebleness. “You are all I have now.”

      “Not all you have, papa,” said Mab; “we have just seen the little boys.”

      A momentary colour flushed over his pale face. “Ah, the babies,” he said. “I am afraid they will be a great deal of trouble to you, my dears.”

      Cicely and Mab looked at each other, but they did not say anything – they were afraid to say something which they ought not to say. And what could he add after that? He took the cup of tea they offered him, and drank it standing, his tall frame with a stoop in it, which was partly age and partly weakness, coming against one tall window and shutting out the light. “But that you are older looking,” he said at last, “all this time might seem like a dream.”

      “A sad dream, papa,” said Cicely, not knowing what to say.

      “I cannot say that, my dear. I thank God I have had a great deal of happiness in my life; because we are sad for the moment we must not forget to thank Him for all His mercies,” said Mr. St. John; and then with a change in his voice, he added, “Your aunt sends me word that she is coming soon to see you. She is a very strong woman for her years; I look older than she does; and it is a trouble to me now to go to town and back in one day.”

      “You have not been ill, papa?”

      “No, Cicely, not ill; a little out of my usual,” he said, “that is all. Now you are here, we shall fall into our quiet way again. The changes God sends we must accept; but the little worries are trying, my dear. I am getting old, and am not so able to brave them; but all will be well now you are here.”

      “We shall do all we can,” said Cicely; “but you must remember, papa, we are not used to housekeeping, and if we make mistakes at first – ”