wards you and to your
children are most affectionate.

I know my aunt will be angry with me. Pray tell her from
me, with my best love, that I have thought very much of
all she said to me, and that I feel sure that I am doing
right. It is not that I should be afraid of the duties
which would fall upon me as your wife; but that the woman
who undertakes those duties should feel for you a wife's
love. I think it is best to speak openly, and I hope that
you will not be offended.

Give my best love to my uncle and aunt, and to the girls,
and to Jack, who will, I hope, keep his promise of coming
and seeing me.

Your very affectionate cousin,

MARGARET MACKENZIE.

"There," said John Ball to his mother, when he had read the letter,
"I knew it would be so; and she is right. Why should she give up her
money and her comfort and her ease, to look after my children?"

Lady Ball took the letter and read it, and pronounced it to be all
nonsense.

"It may be all nonsense," said her son; "but such as it is, it is her
answer."

"I suppose you'll have to go down to Littlebath after her," said Lady
Ball.

"I certainly shall not do that. It would do no good; and I'm not
going to persecute her."

"Persecute her! What nonsense you men do talk! As if any woman in her
condition could be persecuted by being asked to become a baronet's
wife. I suppose I must go down."

"I beg that you will not, mother."

"She is just one of those women who are sure to stand off, not
knowing their own minds. The best creature in the world, and really
very clever, but weak in that respect! She has not had lovers when
she was young, and she thinks that a man should come dallying about
her as though she were eighteen. It only wants a little perseverance,
John, and if you'll take my advice, you'll go down to Littlebath
after her."

But John, in this matter, would not follow his mother's advice, and
declared that he would take no further steps. "He was inclined," he
said, "to think that Margaret was right. Why should any woman burden
herself with nine children?"

Then Lady Ball said a great deal more about the Ball money, giving it
as her decided opinion that Margaret owed herself and her money to
the Balls. As she could not induce her son to do anything, she wrote
a rejoinder to her niece.

"My dearest Margaret," she said, "Your letter has made both me and
John very unhappy. He has set his heart upon m