Once, towards the end of February, Mrs Buggins seduced her lodger down into her parlour in the area, and Miss Mackenzie thought she perceived that something of the old servant’s manners had returned to her. She was more respectful than she had been of late, and made no attempts at smart, ill-natured speeches.

“It’s a weary life, Miss, this you’re living here, isn’t it?” said she.

Margaret said that it was weary, but that there could be no change till the lawsuit should be settled. It would be settled, she hoped, in April.

“Bother it for a lawsuit,” said Mrs Buggins. “They all tells me that it ain’t any lawsuit at all, really.”

“It’s an amicable lawsuit,” said Miss Mackenzie.

“I never see such amicableness! ‘Tis a wonder to hear, Miss, how everybody is talking about it everywheres. Where we was last night—that is, Buggins and I—most respectable people in the copying line—it isn’t only he as does the copying, but she too; nurses the baby, and minds the kitchen fire, and goes on, sheet after sheet, all at the same time; and a very tidy thing they make of it, only they do straggle their words so;—well, they were saying as it’s one of the most remarkablest cases as ever was know’d.”

“I don’t see that I shall be any the better because it’s talked about.”

“Well, Miss Margaret, I’m not so sure of that. It’s my belief that if one only gets talked about enough, one may have a’most anything one chooses to ask for.”

“But I don’t want to ask for anything.”

“But if what we heard last night is all true, there’s somebody else that does want to ask for something, or, as has asked, as folks say.”

Margaret blushed up to the eyes, and then protested that she did not know what Mrs Buggins meant.

“I never dreamed of it, my dear; indeed, I didn’t, when the old lady come here with her tantrums; but now, it’s as plain as a pikestaff. If I’d a’ known anything about that, my dear, I shouldn’t have made so free about Buggins; indeed, I shouldn’t.”

“You’re talking nonsense, Mrs Buggins; indeed, you are.”

“They have the whole story all over the town at any rate, and in the lane, and all about the courts; and they declare it don’t matter a toss of a halfpenny which way the matter goes, as you’re to become Lady Ball the very moment the case is settled.”

Miss Mackenzie protested that Mrs Buggins was a stupid woman,—the stupidest woman she had ever heard or seen; and then hurried up into her own room to hug herself in her joy, and teach herself to believe that what so many people said must at last come true.

Three days after this, a very fine, private carriage, with two servants on a hammer cloth, drove up to the door in Arundel Street, and the maid-servant, hurrying upstairs, told Miss Mackenzie that a beautifully-dressed lady downstairs was desirous of seeing her immediately.