Ayala's Angel

been displayed. When Lucy first asked for some household needlework, which she did with a faltering voice and shame-faced remembrance of her fault, her aunt took it all in good part and gave her a

o had been born together, sisters, with equal fortunes, who had so closely lived together, should be sundered so utterly one from the other; that the one should be so exalted and the ot

one morning. This, too, was a reproach. This, too, was scolding.

o say,” replied Lucy,

t w

ucy. Stupid people can’t talk

t that a touch of such irony might he natural, and that unless it were expressed loudly, or shown actively, it might be left to be suppressed by

er a little pause for thought. “I sometimes

Dosett, hardly knowing what she mea

malice are,” said Lucy. D

ure you

I bear he

ainly

rt of them. If there be joy and sorrow to be divided between us I would wish to have the sorrow so that she might have the joy. That is not hatred and malice.” Mrs Dosett looked at her over her spectacles. This was the girl who had declared that s

chings which had been made necessary by the advent of another inmate in the house; so many pounds of the meat in the week, and so much bread, and so much tea and sugar! It had all been calculated. In genteel houses such calculation must often be made. And when by degrees — degrees very quick — the garments should become worn which Lucy had brought with her, there must be something taken from the tight-fitting income for that need. Arrangements had already been made of which Lucy knew nothing, and already the two glasses of port wi

gsbury Crescent — I would rather bear it myself than subject Ayala to such misery! It was thus that she had, in fact, spoken of her new home when she had found it necessary to defend her feelings towards h

complain

ught y

I to say? Perhaps I should have said nothing, but the i

el

erful I should be false. It is as yet only a few weeks since papa di

and of the girls, and of Sir Thomas, which ought not to have been written of those who were kind to her. Her cousin Tom, too, she ridiculed — Tom Tringle, the son and heir — saying that he was a lout who endeavoured to make eyes at her. Oh, how distasteful, how vulgar they were after all that she had known. Perhaps the eldest girl, Augusta, was the worst. She did not think that she could put up with the assumed authority of Augusta. Gertrude was better, but a simpleton. Ayala declared herself to be sad at heart. But then the sweet scenery of Glenbogie, and

of the injustice by which their two lots had been defined to them. Though she had failed to control herself once or twice in speaking to her aunt she did control herself in writing her letters. She would never, never, write a word which should make Ayala un

n Queen’s Gate, were not enough for the year. Sir Thomas was to take them to Rome, and then return to London for the manipulation of the millions in Lombard Street. He generally did remain nine months out of the tw

She had thought that they had all intended to pass through London just as though they were not stopping. Sunday, she had thought, was not to be regarded as being a day at all. Then Ayala flashed up. She had flashed up some times before. Was it supposed that she was not going to see Lucy? Carriage! She would walk across Kensin

her in Ayala’s bedroom. “And now te

That would have been all; but she would not tell her wretchedness. “We are s

, I do no

your

’t tell you what it is, but they all seem to think so much of them

t is from fe

look down upon papa, who had more in his littl

ould hold

as a way with me, as though she had a right to order me. I ce

r Ay

nty-three at her last birthday, but she is twenty-four. But that is not dif

d not h

mother, when I am there, which almost kills me. “If you’ll only give me notice I’

e them angry if

y n

omas, or Au

he is the most good-natured, though he is so podgy. Of

hat you should be on

t all,” said Ayal

uch for you. We have nothi

o one despises money so much as I do. I will never be other to

ll not d

If Sir Thomas told me anything I should do it. But not Augusta.” Then, while Lucy was thinking how she might best

is t

om

does T

ow Tom,

e seen

orrors he is

order y

but h

is it,

e is so drea

n that he make

hat am I to

ey kno

ome day. I told him the day before we left Glenbogie that I should tell his mother. I did indeed. Then he grinned. He

s been lef

ome over to us some time after Christ

othered by a lover un

ns. When I see Augusta frowning I am so angry that I feel like boxing her ears. Do you know, Lucy, that I often

k whether in any possible case Ayala would indeed be added to the Crescent family, or what in that case would become of herself, and whether they two might live with Aunt Dosett, and whether in that case life would not be infinitely improved. Ayala had all that money could do for her, and would have such a look-out into the world from a wealthy house as might be sure at last to bring her some such husband as would be desirable. Ayala, in fact, had everything before her, and Lucy had nothing. Wherefore it became Lucy’s duty to warn Ay

What does it signify? Papa and mamma are gone, and we are alone.” All this she said without a word of allusion to her own sufferings. Ayala made a half promise. She did not think she wou

uarter of an hour. Augusta would talk first French and then Italian, of which no one could understand a word. Gertrude was so sick with travelling that she was as pale as a sheet. Nobody seemed to care for anything. She could not get her aunt to look at the Campanile at Florence, or her cousins to know one picture from another. “As for pictures, I am quite sure that Mangle’s angels would do as well as Raffael’s.” Mangle was a brother academician whom their father had taught them

she ate, and for the bed on which she slept. As she thought of all that Ayala owed she remembered also her own debts. As the winter went on she struggled to pay them. But Aunt Dosett was a lady not much given to vacillation. She had become aware at