urviving brother, having
positively refused to hold any communication with either of them.
To both these letters, after some interval, she received courteous
replies. Sir Walter Mackenzie was a very old man, over eighty, who
now never stirred away from Incharrow, in Ross-shire. Lady Mackenzie
was not living. Sir Walter did not write himself, but a letter came
from Mrs Mackenzie, his eldest son's wife, in which she said that
she and her husband would be up in London in the course of the next
spring, and hoped that they might then have the pleasure of making
their cousin's acquaintance. This letter, it was true, did not come
till the beginning of August, when the Littlebath plan was nearly
formed; and Margaret knew that her cousin, who was in Parliament, had
himself been in London almost up to the time at which it was written,
so that he might have called had he chosen. But she was prepared to
forgive much. There had been cause for offence; and if her great
relatives were now prepared to take her by the hand, there could be
no reason why she should not consent to be so taken. Sir John Ball,
the other baronet, had absolutely come to her, and had seen her.
There had been a regular scene of reconciliation, and she had gone
down for a day and night to the Cedars. Sir John also was an old man,
being over seventy, and Lady Ball was nearly as old. Mr Ball, the
future baronet, had also been there. He was a widower, with a large
family and small means. He had been, and of course still was, a
barrister; but as a barrister he had never succeeded, and was now
waiting sadly till he should inherit the very moderate fortune which
would come to him at his father's death. The Balls, indeed, had not
done well with their baronetcy, and their cousin found them living
with a degree of strictness, as to small expenses, which she herself
had never been called upon to exercise. Lady Ball indeed had a
carriage--for what would a baronet's wife do without one?--but it did
not very often go out. And the Cedars was an old place, with grounds
and paddocks appertaining; but the ancient solitary gardener could
not make much of the grounds, and the grass of the paddocks was
always sold. Margaret, when she was first asked to go to the Cedars,
felt that it would be better for her to give up her migration to
Littlebath. It would be much, she thought, to have her relations near
to her. But she had found Sir John and Lady Ball to be very dull, and
her cousin,