gift!"

"Oh, indeed! Then there's an end of that, I suppose," said Mr Slow.

"Exactly so. I have been explaining to my cousin all about it. I hope
the firm will be able to pay my sister-in-law the interest on it, but
that does not seem sure."

"I am afraid I cannot help you there, Miss Mackenzie."

"Of course not. I was not thinking of it. But what I've come about is
this." Then she told Mr Slow the whole of her project with reference
to her fortune; how, on his death-bed, she had promised to give half
of all that she had to her brother's wife and family, and how she had
come there to him, with her cousin, in order that he might put her in
the way of keeping her promise.

Mr Slow sat in silence and patiently heard her to the end. She,
finding herself thus encouraged to speak, expatiated on the solemnity
of her promise, and declared that she could not be comfortable till
she had done all that she had undertaken to perform. "And I shall
have quite enough for myself afterwards, Mr Slow, quite enough."

Mr Slow did not say a word till she had done, and even then he
seemed to delay his speech. John Ball never raised his face from his
umbrella, but sat looking at the lawyer, whom he still suspected of
roguery. And if the lawyer were a rogue, what then about his cousin?
It must not be supposed that he suspected her; but what would come of
her, if the fortune she held were, in truth, not her own?

"I have told my cousin all about it," continued Margaret, "and I
believe that he thinks I am doing right. At any rate, I would do
nothing without his knowing it."

"I think she is giving her sister-in-law too much," said John Ball.

"I am only doing what I promised," urged Margaret.

"I think that the money which she lent to the firm should, at any
rate, be deducted," said John Ball, speaking this with a kind of
proviso to himself, that the words so spoken were intended to be
taken as having any meaning only on the presumption that that
document which he had seen in the other room should turn out to be
wholly inoperative and inefficient at the present moment. In answer
to these side-questions or corollary points as to the deduction or
non-deduction of the loan, Mr Slow answered not a word; but when
there was silence between them, he did make answer as to the original
proposition.

"Miss Mackenzie," he said, "I think you had better postpone doing
anything in this matter for the present."

"Why postpone it?" said she.