on for such a life. Up to the time of her going to the
Marchesa in Brook Street, Ayala had certainly done her best to suit
herself to her aunt's manners,--though she had done it with pain and
suffering. She had hemmed the towels and mended the sheets, and had
made the rounds to the shops. She had endeavoured to attend to the
pounds of meat and to sympathise with her aunt in the interest taken
in the relics of the joints as they escaped from the hungry treatment
of the two maidens in the kitchen. Ayala had been clever enough to
understand that her aunt had been wounded by Lucy's indifference, not
so much because she had desired to avail herself of Lucy's labours
as from a feeling that that indifference had seemed to declare that
her own pursuits were mean and vulgar. Understanding this she had
struggled to make those pursuits her own,--and had in part succeeded.
Her aunt could talk to her about the butter and the washing, matters
as to which her lips had been closed in any conversation with Lucy.
That Ayala was struggling Mrs. Dosett had been aware;--but she had
thought that such struggles were good and had not been hopeless. Then
came the visit to Brook Street, and Ayala returned quite an altered
young woman. It seemed as though she neither could nor would struggle
any longer. "I hate mutton-bones," she said to her aunt one morning
soon after her return.

"No doubt we would all like meat joints the best," said her aunt,
frowning.

"I hate joints too."

"You have, I dare say, been cockered up at the Marchesa's with made
dishes."

"I hate dishes," said Ayala, petulantly.

"You don't hate eating?"

"Yes, I do. It is ignoble. Nature should have managed it differently.
We ought to have sucked it in from the atmosphere through our fingers
and hairs, as the trees do by their leaves. There should have been no
butchers, and no grease, and no nasty smells from the kitchen,--and
no gin."

This was worse than all,--this allusion to the mild but unfashionable
stimulant to which Mr. Dosett had been reduced by his good nature.
"You are flying in the face of the Creator, Miss," said Aunt
Margaret, in her most angry voice,--"in the face of the Creator who
made everything, and ordained what his creatures should eat and drink
by His infinite wisdom."

"Nevertheless," said Ayala, "I think we might have done without
boiled mutton." Then she turned to some articles of domestic
needlework which were in her lap so as to show that i