ou have not been made
to be poor and uncomfortable. I fear that it must be bad with you
here."

"It is bad."

"I wish I could have stayed, Ayala. I am more tranquil than you, and
could have borne it better."

"It is bad. It is one of the houses,--but not the lowest. I can eat
my heart out here, peaceably, and die with a great needle in my hand
and a towel in my lap. But if I were to marry him I should kill
myself the first hour after I had gone away with him. Things! What
would things be with such a monster as that leaning over one? Would
you marry him?" In answer to this, Lucy made no immediate reply. "Why
don't you say? You want me to marry him. Would you?"

"No."

"Then why should I?"

"I could not try to love him."

"Try! How can a girl try to love any man? It should come because she
can't help it, let her try ever so. Trying to love Tom Tringle! Why
can't you try?"

"He doesn't want me."

"But if he did? I don't suppose it would make the least difference to
him which it was. Would you try if he asked?"

"No."

"Then why should I? Am I so much a poorer creature than you?"

"You are a finer creature. You know that I think so."

"I don't want to be finer. I want to be the same."

"You are free to do as you please. I am not--quite."

"That means Isadore Hamel."

"I try to tell you all the truth, Ayala; but pray do not talk about
him even to me. As for you, you are free; and if you could--"

"I can't. I don't know that I am free, as you call it." Then Lucy
started, as though about to ask the question which would naturally
follow. "You needn't look like that, Lucy. There isn't any one to be
named."

"A man not to be named?"

"There isn't a man at all. There isn't anybody. But I may have my
own ideas if I please. If I had an Isadore Hamel of my own I could
compare Tom or Mr. Traffick, or any other lout to him, and could say
how infinitely higher in the order of things was my Isadore than
any of them. Though I haven't an Isadore can't I have an image? And
can't I make my image brighter, even higher, than Isadore? You won't
believe that, of course, and I don't want you to believe it yourself.
But you should believe it for me. My image can make Tom Tringle just
as horrible to me as Isadore Hamel can make him to you." Thus it was
that Ayala endeavoured to explain to her sister something of the
castle which she had built in the air, and of the angel of light who
inhabited the castle.

Then it was