er chamber.

Aunt Emmeline, when she was left alone, felt herself to be enveloped
in a cloud of doubt. The desirableness of Tom as a husband first
forced itself upon her attention, and the undesirableness of Ayala as
a wife for Tom. She was perplexed at her own folly in not having seen
that danger of this kind would arise when she first proposed to take
Ayala into the house. Aunts and uncles do not like the marriage of
cousins, and the parents of rich children do not, as a rule, approve
of marriages with those which are poor. Although Ayala had been so
violent, Lady Tringle could not rid herself of the idea that her
darling boy was going to throw himself away. Then her cheeks became
red with anger as she remembered that her Tom had been called a
lout,--a stupid lout. There was an ingratitude in the use of such
language which was not alleviated even by the remembrance that it
tended against that matrimonial danger of which she was so much
afraid. Ayala was behaving very badly. She ought not to have coaxed
Tom to be her lover, and she certainly ought not to have called Tom a
lout. And then Ayala had told her aunt that she was unjust and worse
than Augusta! It was out of the question that such a state of things
should be endured. Ayala must be made to go away.

Before the day was over Lady Tringle spoke to her son, and was
astonished to find that the "lout" was quite in earnest,--so much
in earnest that he declared his purpose of marrying his cousin in
opposition to his father and mother, in opposition even to Ayala
herself. He was so much in earnest that he would not be roused to
wrath even when he was told that Ayala had called him a lout. And
then grew upon the mother a feeling that the young man had never been
so little loutish before. For there had been, even in her maternal
bosom, a feeling that Tom was open to the criticism expressed on him.
Tom had been a hobble-de-hoy, one of those overgrown lads who come
late to their manhood, and who are regarded by young ladies as louts.
Though he had spent his money only too freely when away, his sisters
had sometimes said that he could not say "bo to a goose" at home. But
now,--now Tom was quite an altered young man. When his own letter was
shown to him he simply said that he meant to stick to it. When it was
represented to him that his cousin would be quite an unfit wife for
him he assured his mother that his own opinion on that matter was
very different. When his father's