stant action,
nothing was done during Christmas week, nor had any hint been given
up to the end of the year. John Ball, however, had not altogether
lost his time, and had played the part of middle-aged lover better
than might have been expected from one the whole tenor of whose life
was so thoroughly unromantic. He did manage to make himself pleasant
to Miss Mackenzie, and so far ingratiated himself with her that he
won much of her confidence in regard to money matters.

"But that's a very large sum of money?" he said to her one day as
they were sitting together in his father's study. He was alluding to
the amount which she had lent to Messrs Rubb and Mackenzie, and had
become aware of the fact that as yet Miss Mackenzie held no security
for the loan. "Two thousand five hundred pounds is a very large sum
of money."

"But I'm to get five per cent, John." They were first cousins, but it
was not without some ceremonial difficulty that they had arrived at
each other's Christian names.

"My dear Margaret, their word for five per cent is no security. Five
per cent is nothing magnificent. A lady situated as you are should
never part with her money without security--never: but if she does,
she should have more than five per cent."

"You'll find it's all right, I don't doubt," said Miss Mackenzie,
who, however, was beginning to have little inward tremblings of her
own.

"I hope so; but I must say, I think Mr Slow has been much to blame.
I do, indeed." Mr Slow was the attorney who had for years acted
for Walter Mackenzie and his father, and was now acting for Miss
Mackenzie. "Will you allow me to go to him and see about it?"

"It has not been his fault. He wrote and asked me whether I would let
them have it, before the papers were ready, and I said I would."

"But may I ask about it?"

Miss Mackenzie paused before she answered:

"I think you had better not, John. Remember that Tom is my own
brother, and I should not like to seem to doubt him. Indeed, I do not
doubt him in the least--nor yet Mr Rubb."

"I can assure you that it is a very bad way of doing business," said
the anxious lover.

By degrees she began to like her cousin John Ball. I do not at all
wish the reader to suppose that she had fallen in love with that
bald-headed, middle-aged gentleman, or that she even thought of him
in the light of a possible husband; but she found herself to be
comfortable in his company, and was able to make a friend of him.
I