bedroom
had told him her story with reference to Mr Maguire; but neither did
he ever say that he certainly would not marry her. Lady Ball gathered
from all his words a conviction that he would be glad to be released,
if he could be released by any act on Margaret's behalf, and
therefore she had made her attempt on Margaret. With what success
the reader will, I hope, remember. Margaret, when she accepted her
cousin's offer, had been specially bidden by him to be firm. This
bidding she obeyed, and on that side there was no hope at all for
Lady Ball.

I fear there was much of cowardice on Sir John's part. He had, in
truth, forgiven Margaret any offence that she had committed in
reference to Mr Maguire. She had accepted his offer while another
offer was still dragging on an existence after a sort, and she had
not herself been the first to tell him of these circumstances. There
had been offence to him in this, but that offence he had, in truth,
forgiven. Had there been no Littlebath _Christian Examiner_, no tale
of the Lion and the Lamb, no publicity and no ridicule, he would
quietly have walked off with his cousin to some church, having gone
through all preliminary ceremonies in the most silent manner possible
for them, and would have quietly got himself married and have carried
Margaret home with him. Now that his father was dead and that his
uncle Jonathan's money had come to him, his pecuniary cares were
comparatively light, and he believed that he could be very happy with
Margaret and his children. But then to be pointed at daily as a lion,
and to be asked by all his acquaintances after the lamb! It must be
owned that he was a coward; but are not most men cowards in such
matters as that?

But now the trial was over, the money was his own, Margaret was left
without a shilling in the world, and it was quite necessary that
he should make up his mind. He had once told his lawyer, in his
premature joy, on that very day on which Mr Maguire had come to the
Cedars, that everything was to be made smooth by a marriage between
himself and the disinherited heiress. He had since told the lawyer
that something had occurred which might, perhaps, alter this
arrangement. After that the lawyer had asked no question about
the marriage; but when he communicated to his client the final
intelligence that Jonathan Ball's money was at his client's disposal,
he said that it would be well to arrange what should be done on Miss
Mackenzie's b