Jonathan. I knew it was all a joke,
and yet I hated the woman."

"That must have been love at first sight."

"I think it was. From that day to this I have always been thinking
about him."

"And yet you refused him twice over?"

"Yes."

"At ever so long an interval?" Ayala bobbed her head at her
companion. "And why?"

"Ah;--that I can't tell. I shall try to tell him some day, but I know
that I never shall. It was because--. But, Lady Albury, I cannot tell
it. Did you ever picture anything to yourself in a waking dream?"

"Build castles in the air?" suggested Lady Albury.

"That's just it."

"Very often. But they never come true."

"Never have come true,--exactly. I had a castle in the air, and in
the castle lived a knight." She was still ashamed to say that the
inhabitant of the castle was an Angel of Light. "I wanted to find out
whether he was the knight who lived there. He was."

"And you were not quite sure till to-day?"

"I have been sure a long time. But when we walked out on that Sunday
I was such an idiot that I did not know how to tell him. Oh, Lady
Albury, I was such a fool! What should I have done if he hadn't come
back?"

"Sent for him."

"Never;--never! I should have been miserable always! But now I am so
happy."

"He is the real knight?"

"Oh, yes; indeed. He is the real,--real knight, that has always been
living in my castle."

Ayala's promotion was now so firmly fixed that the buxom female came
to assist her off with her clothes when Lady Albury had left her.
From this time forth it was supposed that such assistance would be
necessary. "I take it, Miss," said the buxom female, "there will be a
many new dresses before the end of this time two years." From which
Ayala was quite sure that everybody in the house knew all about it.

* * * * * *

But it was now, now when she was quite alone, that the great sense
of her happiness came to her. In the fulness of her dreams there
had never been more than the conviction that such a being, and none
other, could be worthy of her love. There had never been faith in the
hope that such a one would come to her,--never even though she would
tell herself that angels had come down from heaven and had sought in
marriage the hands of the daughters of men. Her dreams had been to
her a barrier against love rather than an encouragement. But now he
that she had in truth dreamed of had come for her. Then she brought
out