still they might very probably be as
dogs in the manger, and desirous of preventing their relative from
doing with her money that active service to humanity in general which
would be done were she to marry a deserving clergyman who had nothing
of his own.

He made his visit to the advertising office, and learned that
clergymen without cures were at present drugs in the market. He
couldn't understand how this should be the case, seeing that the
newspapers were constantly declaring that the supply of university
clergymen were becoming less and less every day. He had come from
Trinity, Dublin and after the success of his career at Littlebath,
was astonished that he should not be snapped at by the retailers of
curacies.

On the next day he visited Twickenham. Now, on the morning of that
very day Margaret Mackenzie first woke to the consciousness that
she was the promised wife of her cousin John Ball. There was great
comfort in the thought.

It was not only, nor even chiefly, that she who, on the preceding
morning, had awakened to the remembrance of her utter destitution,
now felt that all those terrible troubles were over. It was not
simply that her great care had been vanquished for her. It was this,
that the man who had a second time come to her asking for her love,
had now given her all-sufficient evidence that he did so for the sake
of her love. He, who was so anxious for money, had shown her that he
could care for her more even than he cared for gold. As she thought
of this, and made herself happy in the thought, she would not rise
at once from her bed, but curled herself in the clothes and hugged
herself in her joy.

"I should have taken him before, at once, instantly, if I could have
thought that it was so," she said to herself; "but this is a thousand
times better."

Then she found that the pillow beneath her cheek was wet with her
tears.

On the preceding evening she had been very silent and demure, and her
betrothed had also been silent. There had been no words about the
tea-making, and Lady Ball had been silent also. As far as she knew,
Margaret was to go on the following day, but she would say nothing on
the subject. Margaret, indeed, had commenced her packing, and did not
know when she went to bed whether she was to go or not. She rather
hoped that she might be allowed to go, as her aunt would doubtless
be disagreeable; but in that, and in all matters now, she would of
course be guided implicitly by