y a Ball, and not by a Mackenzie."

"That does not alter the case in the least. Your feelings should be
just the same in spite of that. Of course the money is yours and you
can do what you like with it. You can give it to young Mr Samuel
Rubb, if you please." Stupid old woman! "But I think you must feel
that you should repair the injury which was done, as it is in your
power to do so. A fine position is offered you. When poor Sir John
goes, you will become Lady Ball, and be the mistress of this house,
and have your own carriage." Terribly stupid old woman! "And you
would have friends and relatives always round you, instead of being
all alone at such a place as Littlebath, which must, I should say,
be very sad. Of course there would be duties to perform to the dear
children; but I don't think so ill of you, Margaret, as to suppose
for an instant that you would shrink from that. Stop one moment,
my dear, and I shall have done. I think I have said all now; but
I can well understand that when John spoke to you, you could not
immediately give him a favourable answer. It was much better to leave
it till to-morrow. But you can't have any objection to speaking out
to me, and I really think you might make me happy by saying that it
shall be as I wish."

It is astonishing the harm that an old woman may do when she goes
well to work, and when she believes she can prevail by means of her
own peculiar eloquence. Lady Ball had so trusted to her own prestige,
to her own ladyship, to her own carriage and horses, and to the
rest of it, and had also so misjudged Margaret's ordinary mild
manner, that she had thought to force her niece into an immediate
acquiescence by her mere words. The result, however, was exactly
the contrary to this. Had Miss Mackenzie been left to herself after
the interview with Mr Ball: had she gone upstairs to sleep upon his
proposal, without any disturbance to those visions of sacrificial
duty which his plain statement had produced: had she been allowed
to leave the house and think over it all without any other argument
to her than those which he had used, I think that she would have
accepted him. But now she was up in arms against the whole thing.
Her mind, clear as it was, was hardly lucid enough to allow of her
separating the mother and son at this moment. She was claimed as a
wife into the family because they thought that they had a right to
her fortune; and the temptations offered, by which they hoped to