ad her hand upon her purse in her pocket.

"No," said he slowly, "no; you need think of nothing of that sort."

"But what am I to do? Where am I to go while this week passes by?"

"You will stay where you are, of course."

"Oh John! if you could understand! How am I to look my aunt in the
face. Don't you know that she would not wish to have me there at all
if I was a poor creature without anything?" The poor creature did not
know herself how terribly heavy was the accusation she was bringing
against her aunt. "And what will she say when she knows that the
money I have spent has never really been my own?"

Then he counselled her to say nothing about it to her aunt till after
her next visit to Mr Slow's and made her understand that he, himself,
would not mention the subject at the Cedars till the week was passed.
He should go, he said, to his own lawyer, and tell him the whole
story as far as he knew it. It was not that he in the least doubted
Mr Slow's honesty or judgment, but it would be better that the two
should act together. Then when the week was over, he and Margaret
would once more go to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

"What a week I shall have!" said she.

"It will be a nervous time for us both," he answered.

"And what must I do after that?" This question she asked, not in the
least as desirous of obtaining from him any assurance of assistance,
but in the agony of her spirit, and in sheer dismay as to her
prospects.

"We must hope for the best," he said. "God tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb." He had often thought of the way in which he had been
shorn, but he did not, at this moment, remember that the shearing had
never been so tempered as to be acceptable to his own feelings.

"And in God only can I trust," she answered. As she said this, her
mind went away to Littlebath, and the Stumfoldians, and Mr Maguire.
Was there not great mercy in the fact, that this ruin had not found
her married to that unfortunate clergyman? And what would they all
say at Littlebath when they heard the story? How would Mrs Stumfold
exult over the downfall of the woman who had rebelled against her!
how would the nose of the coachmaker's wife rise in the air! and how
would Mr Maguire rejoice that this great calamity had not fallen upon
him! Margaret Mackenzie's heart and spirit had been sullied by no
mean feeling with reference to her own wealth. It had never puffed
her up with exultation. But she calculated on the meanness of other