hardly friendly. Is there to be no more
than one hard word between you and me? Though I did not venture
to think that you could tell me that you loved me, I looked for
something kinder, something gentler than that."

"From such a sharp and waspish word as 'no,'
To pluck the sting!"

Ayala did not know the lines I have quoted, but the idea conveyed in
them was present clearly to her mind. She would fain have told him,
had she known how to do so, that her heart was very gentle towards
him, was very kind, gentle and kind as a sister's;--but that she
could not love him, so as to become his wife. "You are not he,--not
he, not that Angel of Light, which must come to me, radiant with
poetry, beautiful to the eye, full of all excellences of art, lifted
above the earth by the qualities of his mind,--such a one as must
come to me if it be that I am ever to confess that I love. You are
not he, and I cannot love you. But you shall be the next to him in my
estimation, and you are already so dear to me that I would be tender
to you, would be gentle,--if only I knew how." It was all there,
clear enough in her mind, but she had not the words. "I don't know
what it is that I ought to say," she exclaimed through her sobs.

"The truth, at any rate," he answered, sternly, "but not the truth,
half and half, after the fashion of some young ladies. Do not think
that you should palter with the truth either because it may not be
palatable to me, or seem decorous to yourself. To my happiness this
matter is all important, and you are something to my happiness, if
only because I have risked it on your love. Tell me;--why cannot you
love me?"

The altered tone of his voice, which now had in it something of
severity, seemed to give her more power.

"It is because--" Then she paused.

"Because why? Out with it, whatever it is. If it be something that
a man may remedy I will remedy it. Do not fear to hurt me. Is it
because I am ugly? That I cannot remedy." She did not dare to tell
him that it was so, but she looked up at him, not dissenting by any
motion of her head. "Then God help me, for ugly I must remain."

"It is not that only."

"Is it because my name is Stubbs--Jonathan Stubbs?" Now she did
assent, nodding her head at him. He had bade her tell him the truth,
and she was so anxious to do as he bade her! "If it be so, Ayala, I
must tell you that you are wrong,--wrong and foolish; that you are
carried away by a feeling of rom