“Margaret,” said John Ball, as soon as he had shut the study door; “but, perhaps, you had better sit down.”

Then she sat down, and he came and seated himself opposite to her; opposite her, but not so close as to give him any of the advantages of a lover.

“Margaret, I don’t know whether you have guessed the subject on which I wish to speak to you; but I wish you had.”

“Is it about the money?” she asked.

“The money! What money? The money you have lent to your brother? Oh, no.”

Then, at that moment, Margaret did, I think, guess.

“It’s not at all about the money,” he said, and then he sighed.

He had at one time thought of asking his mother to make the proposition for him, and now he wished that he had done so.

“No, Margaret, it’s something else that I want to say. I believe you know my condition in life pretty accurately.”

“In what way, John?”

“I am a poor man; considering my large family, a very poor man. I have between eight and nine hundred a year, and when my father and mother are both gone I shall have nearly as much more; but I have nine children, and as I must keep up something of a position, I have a hard time of it sometimes, I can tell you.”

Here he paused, as though he expected her to say something; but she had nothing to say and he went on.

“Jack is at Oxford, as you know, and I wish to give him any chance that a good education may afford. It did not do much for me, but he may be more lucky. When my father is dead, I think I shall sell this place; but I have not quite made up my mind about that;—it must depend on circumstances. As for the girls, you see that I do what I can to educate them.”

“They seem to me to be brought up very nicely; nothing could be better.”

“They are good girls, very good girls, and so is Jack a very good fellow.”

“I love Jack dearly,” said Miss Mackenzie, who had already come to a half-formed resolution that Jack Ball should be heir to half her fortune, her niece Susanna being heiress to the other half.

“Do you? I’m so glad of that.” And there was actually a tear in the father’s eye.

“And so I do the girls,” said Margaret. “It’s something so nice to feel that one has people really belonging to one that one may love. I hope they’ll know Susanna some day, for she’s a very nice girl,—a very dear girl.”

“I hope they will,” said Mr Ball; but there was not much enthusiasm in the expression of this hope.

Then he got up from his chair, and took a turn across the room. “The truth is, Margaret, that there’s no use in my beating about the bush. I shan’t say what I’ve got to say a bit the better for delaying it. I want you to be my wife, and to be mother to those children. I like you better than any woman I’ve seen since I lost Rachel, but I shouldn’t dare to make you such an offer if you had not money of your own. I could not marry unless my wife had money, and I would not marry any woman unless I felt I could love her—not if she had ever so much. There! now you know it all. I suppose I have not said it as I ought to do, but if you’re the woman I take you for that won’t make much difference.”