brother. Now she was left to her
own resources, and as she went silently about the house during those
sad hours which intervened between the death of her brother and
his burial, she was altogether in ignorance whether any means of
subsistence had been left to her. It was known that Walter Mackenzie
had more than once altered his will--that he had, indeed, made many
wills--according as he was at such moments on terms of more or less
friendship with his brother; but he had never told to any one what
was the nature of any bequest that he had made. Thomas Mackenzie had
thought of both his brother and sister as poor creatures, and had
been thought of by them as being but a poor creature himself. He had
become a shopkeeper, so they declared, and it must be admitted that
Margaret had shared the feeling which regarded her brother Tom's
trade as being disgraceful. They, of Arundel Street, had been idle,
reckless, useless beings--so Tom had often declared to his wife--and
only by fits and starts had there existed any friendship between
him and either of them. But the firm of Rubb and Mackenzie was not
growing richer in those days, and both Thomas and his wife had felt
themselves forced into a certain amount of conciliatory demeanour by
the claims of their seven surviving children. Walter, however, said
no word to any one of his money; and when he was followed to his
grave by his brother and nephews, and by Harry Handcock, no one knew
of what nature would be the provision made for his sister.

"He was a great sufferer," Harry Handcock had said, at the only
interview which took place between him and Margaret after the death
of her brother and before the reading of the will.

"Yes indeed, poor fellow," said Margaret, sitting in the darkened
dining-room, in all the gloom of her new mourning.

"And you yourself, Margaret, have had but a sorry time of it." He
still called her Margaret from old acquaintance, and had always done
so.

"I have had the blessing of good health," she said, "and have been
very thankful. It has been a dull life, though, for the last ten
years."

"Women generally lead dull lives, I think." Then he had paused for
a while, as though something were on his mind which he wished to
consider before he spoke again. Mr Handcock, at this time, was bald
and very stout. He was a strong healthy man, but had about him, to
the outward eye, none of the aptitudes of a lover. He was fond of
eating and drinking, as no one k