the fight
altogether. She had no objection to Buggins, and had, indeed, no
strong objection to put herself on a par with Buggins; but she felt
that she could not be on a par with Buggins and with John Ball at
the same time. Why it should be that in associating with the man
she would take a step downwards, and might yet associate with the
man's wife without taking any step downwards, she did not attempt to
explain to herself. But I think that she could have explained it had
she put herself to the task of analysing the question, and that she
felt exactly the result of such analysis without making it. At any
rate, she refused the invitation persistently, and ate her wretched
dinner alone in her bedroom.

She had often told herself, in those days of her philosophy at
Littlebath, that she did not care to be a lady; and she told herself
now the same thing very often when she was thinking of the hospital.
She cosseted herself with no false ideas as to the nature of the work
which she proposed to undertake. She knew very well that she might
have to keep rougher company than that of Buggins if she put her
shoulder to that wheel. She was willing enough to do this, and had
been willing to encounter such company ever since she left the
Cedars. She was prepared for the roughness. But she would not put
herself beyond the pale, as it were, of her cousin's hearth, moved
simply by a temptation to relieve the monotony of her life. When the
work came within her reach she would go to it, but till then she
would bear the wretchedness of her dull room upstairs. She wondered
whether he ever thought how wretched she must be in her solitude.

On New Year's Day she heard that her uncle was dead. She was already
in mourning for her brother, and was therefore called upon to make no
change in that respect. She wrote a note of condolence to her aunt,
in which she strove much, and vainly, to be cautious and sympathetic
at the same time, and in return received a note, in which Lady Ball
declared her purpose of coming to Arundel Street to see her niece as
soon as she found herself able to leave the house. She would, she
said, give Margaret warning the day beforehand, as it would be very
sad if she had her journey all for nothing.

Her aunt, Lady Ball, was coming to see her in Arundel Street! What
could be the purpose of such a visit after all that had passed
between them? And why should her aunt trouble herself to make it
at a period of such great