ove?"

"I don't think I am that either, Miss Todd; only I don't care much
about money if other things are suitable. What I chiefly wanted to
know was--"

"About that Miss Floss?"

"Yes, Miss Todd."

"My belief is there never was a greater calumny, or what I should
call a stronger attempt at a do. Mind I don't think much of your St
Stumfolda, and never did. I believe the poor man has never said a
word to the woman. Mrs Stumfold has put it into her head that she
could have Mr Maguire if she chose to set her cap at him, and, I dare
say, Miss Floss has been dutiful to her saint. But, Miss Mackenzie,
if nothing else hinders you, don't let that hinder you." Then Miss
Todd, having done her business and made her report, took her leave.

This was on Saturday. The next day would be Sunday, and then on the
following morning she must make her answer. All that she had heard
about Mr Maguire was, to her thinking, in his favour. As to his
poverty, that he had declared himself, and that she did not mind. As
to a few hundred pounds of debt, how was a poor man to have helped
such a misfortune? In that matter of Miss Floss he had been basely
maligned,--so much maligned, that Miss Mackenzie owed him all her
sympathy. What excuse could she now have for refusing him?

When she went to bed on the Sunday night such were her thoughts and
her feelings.

CHAPTER XIV

Tom Mackenzie's Bed-Side

There was a Stumfoldian edict, ultra-Median-and-Persian in its
strictness, ordaining that no Stumfoldian in Littlebath should be
allowed to receive a letter on Sundays. And there also existed a
coordinate rule on the part of the Postmaster-General,--or, rather,
a privilege granted by that functionary,--in accordance with which
Stumfoldians, and other such sects of Sabbatarians, were empowered
to prohibit the letter-carriers from contaminating their special
knockers on Sunday mornings. Miss Mackenzie had given way to this
easily, seeing nothing amiss in the edict, and not caring much for
her Sunday letters. In consequence, she received on the Monday
mornings those letters which were due to her on Sundays, and on this
special Monday morning she received a letter, as to which the delay
was of much consequence. It was to tell her that her brother Tom was
dying, and to pray that she would be up in London as early on the
Monday as was practicable. Mr Samuel Rubb, junior, who had written
the letter in Gower Street, had known nothing of the Sabb