“Come and sit down, my dear,” said Lady Ball, in her sweetest voice. “It has got to be very cold, and you had better come near the fire.” Margaret did as she was bidden, and sat herself down in the chair immediately opposite to her aunt.

“This is a wonderful story that John has told me,” continued her aunt—“very wonderful.”

“It is sad enough for me,” said Margaret, who did not feel inclined to be so self-forgetful in talking to her aunt as she had been with her cousin.

“It is sad for you, Margaret, no doubt. But I am sure you have within you that conscientious rectitude of purpose that you would not wish to keep anything for yourself that in truth belongs to another.”

To this Margaret answered nothing, and her aunt went on.

“It is a great change to you, no doubt; and, of course, that is the point on which I wish to speak to you most especially. I have told John that something must be done for you.”

This jarred terribly on poor Margaret’s feelings. Her cousin had said nothing, not a word as to doing anything for her. The man who had told her of his love, and asked her to be his wife, not twelve months since,—who had pressed her to be of all women the dearest to him and the nearest,—had talked to her of her ruin without offering her aid, although this ruin to her would enrich him very greatly. She had expected nothing from him, had wanted nothing from him; but by degrees, when absent from him, the feeling had grown upon her that he had been hard to her in abstaining from expressions of commiseration. She had yielded to him in the whole affair, assuring him that nothing should be done by her to cause him trouble; and she would have been grateful to him if in return he had said something to her of her future mode of life. She had intended to speak to him about the hospital; but she had thought that she might abstain from doing so till he himself should ask some question as to her plans. He had asked no such question, and she was now almost determined to go away without troubling him on the subject. But if he, who had once professed to love her, would make no suggestion as to her future life, she could ill bear that any offer of the kind should come from her aunt, who, as she knew, had only regarded her for her money.

“I would rather,” she replied, “that nothing should be said to him on the subject.”

“And why not, Margaret?”

“I desire that I may be no burden to him or anybody. I will go away and earn my bread; and even if I cannot do that, my relations shall not be troubled by hearing from me.”

She said this without sobbing, but not without that almost hysterical emotion which indicates that tears are being suppressed with pain.