"But, aunt, I should do the same if I had made no promise."
"No, you wouldn't, my dear. Your friends wouldn't let you. And indeed your friends must prevent it now. They will not hear of such a sacrifice being made."
"But, aunt—"
"Well, my dear."
"It's my own, you know." And Margaret, as she said this, plucked up her courage, and looked her aunt full in the face.
"Yes, it is your own, by law; but I don't suppose, my dear, that you are of that disposition or that character that you'd wish to set all the world at defiance, and make everybody belonging to you feel that you had disgraced yourself."
"Disgraced myself by relieving my brother's family!"
"Disgraced yourself by giving to that woman money that has come to you as your fortune has come. Think of it, where it came from!"
"It came to me from my brother Walter."
"And where did he get it? And who made it? And don't you know that your brother Tom had his share of it, and wasted it all? Did it not all come from the Balls? And yet you think so little of that, that you are going to let that woman rob you of it—rob you and my grandchildren; for that, I tell you, is the way in which the world will look at it. Perhaps you don't know it, but all that property was as good as given to John at one time. Who was it first took you by the hand when you were left all alone in Arundel Street? Oh, Margaret, don't go and be such an ungrateful, foolish creature!"