e to each other. Lady Ball thought that she had reason to
be offended, and Margaret would not be the first to speak. In the
evening, before the whole family, she told her cousin that she had
made up her mind to go up to London on Monday. He begged her to
reconsider her resolution, but when she persisted that she would do
so, he did not then argue the question any further. But on the Sunday
he implored her not to go as yet, and did obtain her consent to
postpone her departure till Tuesday. He wished, he said, to be at
any rate one day more in London before she went. On the Sunday she
was closeted with her uncle who also sent for her, and to him she
suggested her plan of becoming nurse at a hospital. He remarked that
he hoped that would not be necessary.

"Something will be necessary," she said, "as I don't mean to eat
anybody's bread but my own."

In answer to this he said that he would speak to John, and then that
interview was over. On the Monday morning John Ball said something
respecting Margaret to his mother which acerbated that lady more than
ever against her niece. He had not proposed that anything special
should be done; but he had hinted, when his mother complained of
Margaret, that Margaret's conduct was everything that it ought to be.

"I believe you would take anybody's part against me," Lady Ball had
said, and then as a matter of course she had been very cross. The
whole of that day was terrible to Miss Mackenzie, and she resolved
that nothing said by her cousin should induce her to postpone her
departure for another day.

In order to insure this by a few minutes' private conversation with
him, and also with the view of escaping for some short time from the
house, she walked down to the station in the evening to meet her
cousin. The train by which he arrived reached Twickenham at five
o'clock, and the walk occupied about twenty minutes. She met him just
as he was coming out of the station gate, and at once told him that
she had come there for the sake of walking back with him and talking
to him. He thanked her, and said that he was very glad to meet her.
He also wanted to speak to her very particularly. Would she take his
arm?

She took his arm, and then began with a quick tremulous voice to tell
him of her sufferings at the house. She threw no blame on her aunt
that she could avoid, but declared it to be natural that under such
circumstances as those now existing her prolonged sojourn at her
aunt's