“I don’t know about being happy,” said Margaret,—“or nice either for the matter of that.”

But there was a smile on her face as she spoke, and Sir John smiled also when he saw it.

“Doesn’t she look well in that bonnet?” said Mrs Mackenzie, turning round to the side of the counter at which he was standing. “It was my choice, and I absolutely made her wear it. If you knew the trouble I had!”

“It is very pretty,” said Sir John.

“Is it not? And are you not very much obliged to me? I’m sure you ought to be, for nobody before has ever taken the trouble of finding out what becomes her most. As for herself, she’s much too well-behaved a young woman to think of such vanities.”

“Not at present, certainly,” said Margaret.

“And why not at present? She looks on those lawyers and their work as though there was something funereal about them. You ought to teach her better, Sir John.”

“All that will be over in a day or two now,” said he.

“And then she will shake off her dowdiness and her gloom together,” said Mrs Mackenzie. “Do you know I fancy she has a liking for pretty things at heart as well as another woman.”

“I hope she has,” said he.

“Of course you do. What is a woman worth without it? Don’t be angry, Margaret, but I say a woman is worth nothing without it, and Sir John will agree with me if he knows anything about the matter. But, Margaret, why don’t you make him buy something? He can’t refuse you if you ask him.”

If Miss Mackenzie could thereby have provided for all the negro soldiers’ orphans in existence, I do not think that she could at that moment have solicited him to make a purchase.

“Come, Sir John,” continued Mrs Mackenzie, “you must buy something of her. What do you say to this paper-knife?”

“How much does the paper-knife cost?” said he, still smiling. It was a large, elaborate, and perhaps, I may say, unwieldy affair, with a great elephant at the end of it.

“Oh! that is terribly dear,” said Margaret, “it costs two pounds ten.”

Thereupon he put his hand into his pocket, and taking out his purse, gave her a five-pound note.

“We never give change,” said Mrs Mackenzie: “do we, Margaret?”

“I’ll give him change,” said Margaret.

“I’ll be extravagant for once,” said Sir John, “and let you keep the whole.”

“Oh, John!” said Margaret.

“You have no right to scold him yet,” said Mrs Mackenzie.

Margaret, when she heard this, blushed up to her forehead, and in her confusion forgot all about the paper-knife and the money. Sir John, I fancy, was almost as much confused himself, and was quite unable to make any fitting reply. But, just at that moment, there came across two harpies from the realms of Mrs Chaucer Munro, eagerly intent upon their prey.

“Here are the lion and the lamb together,” said one harpy. “The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown.” And she tendered him a battered flower, leering at him from beneath her draggled, dusty bonnet as she put forth her untempting hand for the money.