"You are afraid to tell him of this; but of course he must be told. Will you speak to John?"
"Certainly; I meant to do so going to town to-morrow."
"And if he tells you you are wrong—"
"Aunt, I know I am not wrong. It is nonsense to say that I am wrong in—"
"That's disrespectful, Margaret!"
"I don't want to be disrespectful, aunt; but in such a case as this I know that I have a right to do what I like with my own money. If I was going to give it away to any other friend, if I was going to marry, or anything like that,"—she blushed at the remembrance of the iniquities she had half intended as she said this—"then there might be some reason for you to scold me; but with a brother and a brother's family it can't be wrong. If you had a brother, and had been with him when he was dying, and he had left his wife and children looking to you, you would have done the same."
Upon this Lady Ball got up from her chair and walked to the door. Margaret had been more impetuous and had answered her with much more confidence than she had expected. She was determined now to say one more word, but so to say it that it should not be answered—to strike one more blow, but so to strike it that it should not be returned.
"Margaret," she said, as she stood with the door open in her hands, "if you will reflect where the money came from, your conscience will tell you without much difficulty where it should go to. And when you think of your brother's children, whom this time last year you had hardly seen, think also of John Ball's children, who have welcomed you into this house as their dearest relative. In one sense, certainly, the money is yours, Margaret; but in another sense, and that the highest sense, it is not yours to do what you please with it."
Then Lady Ball shut the door rather loudly, and sailed away along the hall. When the passages were clear, Miss Mackenzie made her way up into her own room, and saw none of the family till she came down just before dinner.
She sat for a long time in the chair by her bed-side thinking of her position. Was it true after all that she was bound by a sense of justice to give any of her money to the Balls? It was true that in one sense it had been taken from them, but she had had nothing to do with the taking. If her brother Walter had married and had children, then the Balls would have not expected the money back again. It was ever so many years,—five-and-twenty years, and more since the legacy had been made by Jonathan Ball to her brother, and it seemed to her that her aunt had no common sense on her side in the argument. Was it possible that she should allow her own nephews and nieces to starve while she was rich? She had, moreover, made a promise,—a promise to one who was now dead, and there was a solemnity in that which carried everything else before it. Even though the thing might be unjust, still she must do it.