Margaret, when her eyes were thus opened, of course ceased to make little pincushions, but she felt that her interest in the thing was very much lowered. But a word must be said as to that question of the dress. Miss Mackenzie, when she was first interrogated as to her intentions, declared her purpose of wearing a certain black silk dress which had seen every party at Mrs Stumfold's during Margaret's Littlebath season. To this her cousin demurred, and from demurring proceeded to the enunciation of a positive order. The black silk dress in question should not be worn. Now Miss Mackenzie chose to be still in mourning on the second of June, the day of the bazaar, her brother having died in September, and had no fitting garment, so she said, other than the black silk in question. Whereupon Mrs Mackenzie, without further speech to her cousin on the subject, went out and purchased a muslin covered all over with the prettiest little frecks of black, and sent a milliner to Margaret, and provided a bonnet of much the same pattern, the gayest, lightest, jauntiest, falsest, most make-belief-mourning bonnet that ever sprang from the art of a designer in bonnets—and thus nearly broke poor Margaret's heart.
"People should never have things given them, who can't buy for themselves," she said, with tears in her eyes, "because of course they know what it means."
"But, my dearest," said Mrs Mackenzie, "young ladies who never have any money of their own at all always accept presents from all their relations. It is their special privilege."
"Oh, yes, young ladies; but not women like me who are waiting to find out whether they are ruined or not."
The difficulty, however, was at last overcome, and Margaret, with many inward upbraidings of her conscience, consented to wear the black-freckled dress.
"I never saw anybody look so altered in my life," said Mrs Mackenzie, when Margaret, apparelled, appeared in the Cavendish Square drawing-room on the morning in question. "Oh, dear, I hope Sir John Ball will come to look at you."
"Nonsense! he won't be such a fool as to do anything of the kind."
"I took care to let him know that you would be there;" said Mrs Mackenzie.
"You didn't?"
"But I did, my dear."