ance, which is a false romance. Far
be it from me to say that I could make you happy, but I am sure that
your happiness cannot be made and cannot be marred by such accidents
as that. Do you think that my means are not sufficient?"

"No;--no," she cried; "I know nothing of your means. If I could love
you I would not condescend to ask,--even to hear."

"There is no other man, I think?"

"There is no other man."

"But your imagination has depicted to you something grander than I
am,"--then she assented quickly, turning round and nodding her head
to him,--"some one who shall better respond to that spirit of poetry
which is within you?" Again she nodded her head approvingly, as
though to assure him that now he knew the whole truth. "Then, Ayala,
I must strive to soar till I can approach your dreams. But, if you
dare to desire things which are really grand, do not allow yourself
to be mean at the same time. Do not let the sound of a name move you,
or I shall not believe in your aspirations. Now shall I take you back
to the house?"

Back to the house they went, and there was not another word spoken
between them. By those last words of his she had felt herself to be
rebuked. If it were possible that he could ask her again whether that
sound, Jonathan Stubbs, had anything to do with it, she would let him
know now, by some signal, that she no longer found a barrier in the
name. But there were other barriers,--barriers which he himself had
not pretended to call vain. As to his ugliness, that he had confessed
he could not remedy; calling on God to pity him because he was so.
And as for that something grander which he had described, and for
which her soul sighed, he had simply said that he would seek for it.
She was sure that he would not find it. It was not to such as he that
the something grander,--which was to be the peculiar attribute of
the Angel of Light,--could be accorded. But he had owned that the
something grander might exist.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"THE FINEST HERO THAT I EVER KNEW."

The Colonel and Ayala returned to the house without a word. When they
were passing through the hall she turned to go at once up the stairs
to her own room. As she did so he put out his hand to her, and she
took it. But she passed on without speaking, and when she was alone
she considered it over all in her own mind. There could be no doubt
that she was right. Of that she was quite sure. It was certainly a
fixed law that a girl sh