wn
happiness, it would certainly be better for her that it should not be
hers. And if it should be Mr Rubb with the yellow gloves! But before
she could consider that alternative she had opened the door, and
there was Mr Maguire standing ready to receive her.

"Dearest Margaret!" he exclaimed. "My own love!" And there he stood,
with his arms open, as though he expected Miss Mackenzie to rush into
them. He was certainly a man of very great courage.

"Mr Maguire!" said she, and she stood still near the door. Then she
looked at her aunt, and saw that Lady Ball's eyes were keenly fixed
upon her. Something like the truth, some approximation to the facts
as they were, flashed upon her in a moment, and she knew that she had
to bear herself in this difficulty with all her discretion and all
her fortitude.

"Margaret," exclaimed Mr Maguire, "will you not come to me?"

"What do you mean, Mr Maguire?" said she, still standing aloof from
him, and retreating somewhat nearer to the door.

"The gentleman says that you are engaged to marry him," said Lady
Ball.

Margaret, looking again into her aunt's face, saw the smile of
triumph that sat there, and resolved at once to make good her ground.

"If he has said that, he has told an untruth,--an untruth both
unmanly and unmannerly. You hear, sir, what Lady Ball has stated. Is
it true that you have made such an assertion?"

"And will you contradict it, Margaret? Oh, Margaret! Margaret! you
cannot contradict it."

The reader must remember that this clergyman no doubt thought and
felt that he had a good deal of truth on his side. Gentlemen when
they make offers to ladies, and are told by ladies that they may
come again, and that time is required for consideration, are always
disposed to think that the difficulties of the siege are over. And
in nine cases out of ten it is so. Mr Maguire, no doubt, since
the interview in question, had received letters from the lady
which should at any rate have prevented him from uttering any such
assertion as that which he had now made; but he looked upon those
letters as the work of the enemy, and chose to go back for his
authority to the last words which Margaret had spoken to him. He knew
that he was playing an intricate game,--that all was not quite on the
square; but he thought that the enemy was playing him false, and that
falsehood in return was therefore fair. This that was going on was a
robbery of the Church, a spoiling of Israel, a touch