"A hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year. That isn't much, but it will keep them from absolute want."
"Would it, aunt?"
"Oh, yes; at least, I suppose so. I hope she's a good manager. She ought to be, for she's a very disagreeable woman. You told me that yourself, you know."
Then Miss Mackenzie, having considered for one moment, resolved to make a clean breast of it all, and this she did with the fewest possible words.
"I'm going to divide what I've got with them, and I hope it will make them comfortable."
"What!" exclaimed her aunt.
"I'm going to give Sarah half what I've got, for her and her children. I shall have enough to live on left."
"Margaret, you don't mean it?"
"Not mean it? why not, aunt? You would not have me let them starve. Besides, I promised my brother when he was dying."
"Then I must say he was very wrong, very wicked, I may say, to exact any such promise from you; and no such promise is binding. If you ask Sir John, or your lawyer, they will tell you so. What! exact a promise from you to the amount of half your income. It was very wrong."