“It is a vile, lying paper, and it was written by a vile, lying man, and I hope you will put it up and say nothing about it.”

“It is a vile, lying paper, Margaret; but the lies are against my son, and not against you.”

“He is a man, and knows what he is about, and it does not signify to him. But, aunt, I won’t talk about it, and there’s an end of it.”

“I hope he does know what he is about,” said Lady Ball. “I hope he does. But you, as you say, are a woman, and therefore it specially behoves you to know what you are about.”

“I am not doing anything to anybody,” said Margaret.

Lady Ball had now refolded the offensive newspaper, and restored it to her pocket. Perhaps she had done as much with it as she had from the first intended. At any rate, she brought it forth no more, and made no further intentionally direct allusion to it. “I don’t suppose you really wish to do any injury to anybody,” she said.

“Does anybody accuse me of doing them an injury?” Margaret asked.

“Well, my dear, if I were to say that I accused you, perhaps you would misunderstand me. I hope—I thoroughly expect, that before I leave you, I may be able to say that I do not accuse you. If you will only listen to me patiently for a few minutes, Margaret—which I couldn’t get you to do, you know, before you went away from the Cedars in that very extraordinary manner—I think I can explain to you something which—” Here Lady Ball became embarrassed, and paused; but Margaret gave her no assistance, and therefore she began a new sentence. “In point of fact, I want you to listen to what I say, and then, I think—I do think—you will do as we would have you.”

Whom did she include in that word “we”? Margaret had still sufficient vitality not to let the word pass by unquestioned. “You mean yourself and John?” said she.

“I mean the family,” said Lady Ball rather sharply. “I mean the whole family, including those dear girls to whom I have been in the position of a mother since my son’s wife died. It is in the name of the Ball family that I now speak, and surely I have a right.”

Margaret thought that Lady Ball had no such right, but she would not say so at that moment.

“Well, Margaret, to come to the point at once, the fact is this. You must renounce any idea that you may still have of becoming my son’s wife.” Then she paused.

“Has John sent you here to say this?” demanded Margaret.

“I don’t wish you to ask any such question as that. If you had any real regard for him I don’t think you would ask it. Consider his difficulties, and consider the position of those poor children! If he were your brother, would you advise him, at his age, to marry a woman without a farthing, and also to incur the certain disgrace which would attach to his name after—after all that has been said about it in this newspaper?”—then, Lady Ball put her hand upon her pocket—“in this newspaper, and in others?”