fter all that you said to him when he lay there dying!" and the
woman, with some approach to true pathos, put her hand on the spot
where her husband's head had rested. "Don't let his children come
to beggary because men like that choose to rob the widow and the
orphan."

"Every one has a right to what is his own," said Margaret. "Even
though widows should be beggars, and orphans should want."

"That's very well of you, Margaret. It's very well for you to say
that, who have friends like the Balls to stand by you. And, perhaps,
if you will let him have it all without saying anything, he will
stand by you firmer than ever. But who is there to stand by me and
my children? It can't be that after twenty years your fortune should
belong to anyone else. Why should it have gone on for more than
twenty years, and nobody have found it out? I don't believe it can
come so, Margaret, unless you choose to let them do it. I don't
believe a word of it."

There was nothing more to be said upon that subject at present. Mrs
Tom did indeed say a great deal more about it, sometimes threatening
Margaret, and sometimes imploring her; but Miss Mackenzie herself
would not allow herself to speak of the thing otherwise than as an
ascertained fact. Had the other woman been more reasonable or less
passionate in her lamentations Miss Mackenzie might have trusted
herself to tell her that there was yet a doubt. But she herself felt
that the doubt was so small, and that, in Mrs Tom's mind, it would
be so magnified into nearly a certainty on the other side, that
she thought it most discreet not to refer to the exact amount of
information which Mr Slow had given to her.

"It will be best for us to think, Sarah," she said, trying to turn
the other's mind away from the coveted income which she would never
possess--"to think what you and the children had better do."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"It is very bad; but there is always something to be done. We must
lose no time in letting Mr Rubb know the truth. When he hears how it
is, he will understand that something must be done for you out of the
firm."

"He won't do anything. He's downstairs now, flirting with that girl
in the drawing-room, instead of being at his business."

"If he's downstairs, I will see him."

As Mrs Mackenzie made no objection to this, Margaret went downstairs,
and when she came near the passage at the bottom, she heard the
voices of people talking merrily in the parlo