Your very humble servant,

Margaret Mackenzie.

I feel that the letter was somewhat curt and dry as an answer to an effusion so full of affection as that which the gentleman had written; and the fair reader, when she remembers that Miss Mackenzie had given the gentleman considerable encouragement, will probably think that she should have expressed something like regret at so sudden a termination to so tender a friendship. But she, in truth, regarded the offer as having been made to her money solely, and as in fact no longer existing as an offer, now that her money itself was no longer in existence. She was angry with Mr Maguire for the words he had written about her brother’s affairs; for his wish to limit her kindness to her nephews and nieces, and also for his greediness in being desirous of getting her money at once; but as to the main question, she thought herself bound to answer him plainly, as she would have answered a man who came to buy from her a house, which house was no longer in her possession.

Mr Maguire when he received her letter, did not believe a word of it. He did not in the least believe that she had actually lost everything that had once belonged to her, or that he, if he married her now, would obtain less than he would have done had he married her before her brother’s death. But he thought that her brother’s family and friends had got hold of her in London; that Mr Rubb might very probably have done it; and that they were striving to obtain command of her money, and were influencing her to desert him. He thinking so, and being a man of good courage, took a resolution to follow his game, and to see whether even yet he might not obtain the good things which had made his eyes glisten and his mouth water. He knew that there was very much against him in the race that he was desirous of running, and that an heiress with—he did not know how much a year, but it had been rumoured among the Stumfoldians that it was over a thousand—might not again fall in his way. There were very many things against him, of which he was quite conscious. He had not a shilling of his own, and was in receipt of no professional income. He was not altogether a young man. There was in his personal appearance a defect which many ladies might find it difficult to overcome; and then that little story about his debts, which Miss Todd had picked up, was not only true, but was some degrees under the truth. No doubt, he had a great wish that his wife should be comfortable; but he also, for himself, had long been pining after those eligible comforts, which when they appertain to clergymen, the world, with so much malice, persists in calling the flesh-pots of Egypt. Thinking of all this, of the position he had already gained in spite of his personal disadvantages, and of the great chance there was that his Margaret might yet be rescued from the Philistines, he resolved upon a journey to London.