“You are very kind,” she said at last with faltering voice, as she meditated in what words she might best convey her refusal.

“No, I’m not a bit kind; and I know from the tone of your voice that you are meditating a refusal. But I don’t mean to accept it. It is much better that you should be with us while all this is going on, than that you should be living here alone. And there is no one with whom you could live during this time so properly, as with those who are your nearest relatives.”

“But, Mrs Mackenzie—”

“I suppose you are thinking now of another cousin, but it’s not at all proper that you should go to his house;—not as yet, you know. And you need not suppose that he’ll object because of what I said about Lady Ball and myself. The Capulets and the Montagues don’t intend to keep it up for ever; and, though we have never visited Lady Ball, my husband and the present Sir John know each other very well.”

Mrs Mackenzie was not on that occasion able to persuade Margaret to come at once to Cavendish Square, and neither was Margaret able to give a final refusal. She did not intend to go, but she could not bring herself to speak a positive answer in such a way as to have much weight with Mrs Mackenzie. That lady left her at last, saying that she would send her husband, and promising Margaret that she would herself come in ten days to fetch her.

“Oh no,” said Margaret; “it will be very good-natured of you to come, but not for that.”

“But I shall come, and shall come for that,” said Mrs Mackenzie; and at the end of the ten days she did come, and she did carry her husband’s cousin back with her to Cavendish Square.

In the meantime Walter Mackenzie had called in Arundel Street, and had seen Margaret. But there had been given to her advice by a counsellor whom she was more inclined to obey than any of the Mackenzies. John Ball had written to her, saying that he had heard of the proposition, and recommending her to accept the invitation given to her.

“Till all this trouble about the property is settled,” said he, “it will be much better that you should be with your cousins than living alone in Mrs Buggins’ lodgings.”

After receiving this Margaret held out no longer but was carried off by the handsome lady in the grand carriage, very much to the delight of Mrs Buggins.

Mrs Buggins’ respect for Miss Mackenzie had returned altogether since she had heard of the invitation to Cavendish Square, and she apologised, almost without ceasing, for the liberty she had taken in suggesting that Margaret should drink tea with her husband.

“And indeed, Miss, I shouldn’t have proposed such a thing, were it ever so, if I had suspected for a hinstant how things were a going to be. For Buggins is a man as knows his place, and never puts himself beyond it! But you was that close, Miss—”