Ayala! Colonel Stubbs should call her Ayala as long as he
pleased,--if it were done only in friendship.

After that they were driven about for a while, seeing what Tony did
with the hounds, as tidings came to them now and again that one
fox had broken this way and another had gone the other. But Ayala,
through it all, could not interest herself about the foxes. She was
thinking only of Jonathan Stubbs. She knew that she was pleased
because he had spoken to her, and had said kind, pleasant words to
her. She knew that she had been displeased while he had sat apart
from her, talking to others. But yet she could not explain to herself
why she had been either pleased or displeased. She feared that there
was more than friendship,--than mere friendship, in that declaration
of his that he did in truth regret the pony. His voice had been, oh,
so sweet as he had said it! Something told her that men do not speak
in mere friendship after that fashion. Not even in the softness of
friendship between a man and a woman will the man's voice become
as musical as that! Young as she was, child as she was, there was
an instinct in her breast which declared to her that it was so. But
then, if it were so, was not everything again wrong with her? If it
were so, then must that condition of things be coming back which it
had been, and still was her firm resolve to avoid. And yet, as the
carriage was being driven about, and as the frequent exclamations
came that the fox had traversed this way or that, her pride was
gratified and she was happy.

"What was Colonel Stubbs saying to you?" asked Nina, when they were
at home at the house after lunch.

"He was talking about the dear pony which I used to ride."

"About nothing else?"

"No;--about nothing else." This Ayala said with a short, dry manner
of utterance which she would assume when she was determined not to
have a subject carried on.

"Ayala, why do you not tell me everything? I told you everything as
soon as it happened."

"Nothing has happened."

"I know he asked you," said Nina.

"And I answered him."

"Is that to be everything?"

"Yes;--that is to be everything," said Ayala, with a short, dry
manner of utterance. It was so plain, that even Nina could not pursue
the subject.

There was nothing done on that day in the way of sport. Glomax
thought that Tony had been idle, and had made a holiday of the day
from the first. But Sir Harry declared that there had not been a yard
o