When he entered the room Lady Ball looked at him and shuddered. People always did shudder when they saw him for the first time.

“Lady Ball,” said he, “I am the Rev. Mr Maguire, of Littlebath.”

She was holding his card in her hand, and having notified to him that she was aware of the fact he had mentioned, asked him to sit down.

“I have called,” said he, taking his seat, “hoping to be allowed to speak to you on a subject of extreme delicacy.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Ball, thinking to catch his eye, and failing in the effort.

“I may say of very extreme delicacy. I believe your niece, Miss Margaret Mackenzie, is staying here?” In answer to this, Lady Ball acknowledged that Miss Mackenzie was now at the Cedars.

“Have you any objection, Lady Ball, to allowing me to see her in your presence?”

Lady Ball was a quick-thinking, intelligent, and, at the same time, prudent old lady, and she gave no answer to this before she had considered the import of the question. Why should this clergyman want to see Margaret? And would his seeing her conduce most to her own success, or to Margaret’s? Then there was the fact that Margaret was of an age which entitled her to the right of seeing any visitor who might call on her. Thinking over all this as best she could in the few moments at her command, and thinking also of this clergyman’s stipulation that she was to be present at the interview, she said that she had no objection whatever. She would send for Miss Mackenzie.

She rose to ring the bell, but Mr Maguire, also rising from his chair, stopped her hand.

“Pardon me for a moment,” said he. “Before you call Margaret to come down I would wish to explain to you for what purpose I have come here.”

Lady Ball, when she heard the man call her niece by her Christian name, listened with all her ears. Under no circumstances but one could such a man call such a woman by her Christian name in such company.

“Lady Ball,” he said, “I do not know whether you may be aware of it or no, but I am engaged to marry your niece.”

Lady Ball, who had not yet resumed her seat, now did so.

“I had not heard of it,” she said.

“It may be so,” said Mr Maguire.

“It is so,” said Lady Ball.

“Very probably. There are many reasons which operate upon young ladies in such a condition to keep their secret even from their nearest relatives. For myself, being a clergyman of the Church of England, professing evangelical doctrines, and therefore, as I had need not say, averse to everything that may have about it even a seeming of impropriety, I think it best to declare the fact to you, even though in doing so I may perhaps give some offence to dear Margaret.”

It must, I think, be acknowledged that Mr Maguire was true to himself, and that he was conducting his case at any rate with courage.