ong. Lucy, though not so attractive as Ayala, was
pretty, quiet, and ladylike. So she thought now. And as to Ayala's
attractions, they were not at all of a nature to be serviceable to
such a family as hers. To have her own girls outshone, to be made
to feel that the poor orphan was the one person most worthy of note
among them, to be subjected to the caprices of a pretty, proud,
ill-conditioned minx;--thus it was that Aunt Emmeline was taught
to regard her own charity and good-nature towards her niece. There
was, she said, no gratitude in Ayala. Had she said that there was no
humility she would have been more nearly right. She was entitled, she
thought, to expect both gratitude and humility, and she was sorry
that she had opened the Paradise of her opulent home to one so little
grateful and so little humble as Ayala. She saw now her want of
judgment in that she had not taken Lucy.

Tom, who was not a fool, in spite of his trinkets, saw the state of
the case, and took Ayala's part at once. "I think you are quite
right," he said to her, on the first occasion on which he had
contrived to find himself alone with her after his arrival.

"Right about what?"

"In not giving up to Augusta. She was always like that when she was a
child, and now her head is turned about Traffick."

"I shouldn't grudge her her lover if she would only let me alone."

"I don't suppose she hurts you much?"

"She sets my aunt against me, and that makes me unhappy. Of course I
am wretched."

"Oh, Ayala, don't be wretched."

"How is one to help it? I never said an ill-natured word to her,
and now I am so lonely among them!" In saying this,--in seeking to
get one word of sympathy from her cousin, she forgot for a moment
his disagreeable pretensions. But, no sooner had she spoken of her
loneliness, than she saw that ogle in his eye of which she had spoken
with so much ludicrous awe in her letters from Glenbogie to her
sister.

"I shall always take your part," said he.

"I don't want any taking of parts."

"But I shall. I am not going to see you put upon. You are more to me,
Ayala, than any of them." Then he looked at her, whereupon she got up
and ran away.

But she could not always run away, nor could she always refuse when
he asked her to go with him about the show-places of the city. To
avoid starting alone with him was within her power; but she found
herself compelled to join herself to Gertrude and her brother in
some of those little