The months of January and February slowly wore themselves away, and during the whole of that time Margaret saw her cousin but once, and then she met him at Mr Slow's chambers. She had gone there to sign some document, and there she had found him. She had then been told that she would certainly lose her cause. No one who had looked into the matter had any doubt of that. It certainly was the case that Jonathan Ball had bequeathed property which was not his at the time he made the will, but which at the time of his death, in fact, absolutely belonged to his nephew, John Ball. Old Mr Slow, as he explained this now for the seventh or eighth time, did it without a tone of regret in his voice, or a sign of sorrow in his eye. Margaret had become so used to the story now, that it excited no strong feelings within her. Her wish, she said, was, that the matter should be settled. The lawyer, with almost a smile on his face, but still shaking his head, said that he feared it could not be settled before the end of April. John Ball sat by, leaning his face, as usual, upon his umbrella, and saying nothing. It did, for a moment, strike Miss Mackenzie as singular, that she should be reduced from affluence to absolute nothingness in the way of property, in so very placid a manner. Mr Slow seemed to be thinking that he was, upon the whole, doing rather well for his client. "Of course you understand, Miss Mackenzie, that you can have any money you require for your present personal wants." This had been said to her so often, that she took it as one of Mr Slow's legal formulas, which meant nothing to the laity. On that occasion also Mr Ball walked home with her, and was very eloquent about the law's delays. He also seemed to speak as though there was nothing to be regretted by anybody, except the fact that he could not get possession of the property as quick as he wished. He said not a word of anything else, and Margaret, of course, submitted to be talked to by him rather than to talk herself. Of Lady Ball's visit he said not a word, nor did she. She asked after the children, and especially after Jack. One word she did say: "I had hoped Jack would have come to see me at my lodgings." "Perhaps he had better not," said Jack's father, "till all is settled. We have had much to trouble us at home since my father's death." Then of course she dropped that subject. She had been greatly startled on that day on hearing her cousin called Sir John by Mr Slow. Up to that moment it had never occurred to her that the man of whom she was so constantly thinking as her possible husband was a baronet. To have been Mrs Ball seemed to her to have been possible; but that she should become Lady Ball was hardly possible. She wished that he had not been called Sir John. It seemed to her to be almost natural that people should be convinced of the impropriety of such a one as her becoming the wife of a baronet.