to somebody."

"Why should I be a Mrs. Gregory? I don't think I am at all like Mrs.
Gregory."

"Not to me, Ayala." Now she heard the "Ayala," and felt something
of what it meant. There had been moments at which she had almost
disliked to hear him call her Miss Dormer; but now,--now she wished
that he had not called her Ayala. She strove to assume a serious
expression of face, but having done so she could not dare to turn
it up towards him. The glance of her little anger, if there was any,
fell only upon the ground. "It is because you are to me a creature so
essentially different from Mrs. Gregory that I seem to know you so
well. I never want to go to Drumcaller if you are near me;--or, if I
think of Drumcaller, it is that I might be there with you."

"I am sure the place is very pretty, but I don't suppose I shall ever
see it."

"Do you know about your sister and Mr. Hamel?"

"Yes," said Ayala, surprised. "She has told me all about it. How do
you know?"

"He was staying at Drumcaller,--he and I together with no one
else,--when he went over to ask her. I never saw a man so happy as
when he came back from Glenbogie. He had got all that he wanted in
the world."

"I do so love him because he loves her."

"And I love her,--because she loves you."

"It is not the same, you know," said Ayala, trying to think it all
out.

"May I not love her?"

"He is to be my brother. That's why I love him. She can't be your
sister." The poor girl, though she had tried to think it all out, had
not thought very far.

"Can she not?" he said.

"Of course not. Lucy is to marry Mr. Hamel."

"And whom am I to marry?" Then she saw it all. "Ayala,--Ayala,--who
is to be my wife?"

"I do not know," she said,--speaking with a gruff voice, but still in
a whisper, with a manner altogether different,--thinking how well it
would be that she should be taken at once back into the house.

"Do you not know whom I would fain have as my wife?" Then he felt
that it behoved him to speak out plainly. He was already sure that
she would not at once tell him that it should be as he would have
it,--that she would not instantly throw herself into his arms. But he
must speak plainly to her, and then fight his cause as best he might.
"Ayala, I have asked you to come out with me that I might ask you to
be my wife. It is that that I did not wish Nina to hear at once. If
you will put out your hand and say that it shall be so, Nina and all
the world shal