"Mr Stumfold has a great many lady friends at Littlebath," he continued. "Yes, a great many," said Miss Mackenzie, understanding well that she was being bullied. "What a pity that there can be only one Mrs Stumfold," snarled the baronet; "it's often a wonder to me how women can be so foolish." "And it's often a wonder to me," said Miss Mackenzie, "how gentlemen can be so ill-natured." She had plucked up her spirits of late, and had resented Sir John's ill-humour. At the usual hour Mr Ball came home to dinner, and Miss Mackenzie, as soon as she saw him, again became fluttered. She perceived that he was not at his ease, and that made her worse. When he spoke to the girls he seemed hardly to mind what he was saying, and he greeted his mother without any whispered tidings as to the share-market of the day. Margaret asked herself if it could be possible that anything was very wrong about her own money. If the worst came to the worst she could but have lost that two thousand five hundred pounds and she would be able to live well enough without it. If her brother had asked her for it, she would have given it to him. She would teach herself to regard it as a gift, and then the subject would not make her unhappy. They all came down to dinner, and they all went in to tea, and the tea-things were taken away, and then John Ball arose. During tea-time neither he nor Miss Mackenzie had spoken a word, and when she got up to follow him, there was a solemnity about the matter which ought to have been ludicrous to any of those remaining, who might chance to know what was about to happen. It must be supposed that Lady Ball at any rate did know, and when she saw her middle-aged niece walk slowly out of the room after her middle-aged son, in order that a love proposal might be made from one to the other with advantage, she must, I should think, have perceived the comic nature of the arrangement. She went on, however, very gravely with her knitting, and did not even make an attempt to catch her husband's eye. "Margaret," said John Ball, as soon as he had shut the study door; "but, perhaps, you had better sit down." Then she sat down, and he came and seated himself opposite to her; opposite her, but not so close as to give him any of the advantages of a lover. "Margaret, I don't know whether you have guessed the subject on which I wish to speak to you; but I wish you had." "Is it about the money?" she asked. "The money! What money? The money you have lent to your brother? Oh, no." Then, at that moment, Margaret did, I think, guess. "It's not at all about the money," he said, and then he sighed. He had at one time thought of asking his mother to make the proposition for him, and now he wished that he had done so. "No, Margaret, it's something else that I want to say. I believe you know my condition in life pretty accurately." "In what way, John?"