ified as a grand lady ought to be. At any rate it
would be impossible that I should remain here. Tom is bad
enough, but to be told that I encourage him is more than I
can bear.

I shall see you very soon, but I cannot help writing and
telling it to you all. Give my love to Aunt Dosett. If she
will consent to receive me I will endeavour to be good to
her. In the meantime good-bye.

Your most affectionate sister,

AYALA.

When Lucy had completed the reading of the letters she sat for a
considerable time wrapped in thought. There was, in truth, very much
that required thinking. It was proposed that the whole tenour of
her life should be changed, and changed in a direction which would
certainly suit her taste. She had acknowledged to herself that she
had hated the comparative poverty of her Uncle Dosett's life, hating
herself in that she was compelled to make such acknowledgment. But
there had been more than the poverty which had been distasteful to
her,--a something which she had been able to tell herself that she
might be justified in hating without shame. There had been to her an
absence of intellectual charm in the habits and manners of Kingsbury
Crescent which she had regarded as unfortunate and depressing. There
had been no thought of art delights. No one read poetry. No one heard
music. No one looked at pictures. A sheet to be darned was the one
thing of greatest importance. The due development of a leg of mutton,
the stretching of a pound of butter, the best way of repressing the
washerwoman's bills,--these had been the matters of interest. And
they had not been made the less irritating to her by her aunt's
extreme goodness in the matter. The leg of mutton was to be developed
in the absence of her uncle,--if possible without his knowledge. He
was to have his run of clean linen. Lucy did not grudge him anything,
but was sickened by that partnership in economy which was established
between her and her aunt. Undoubtedly from time to time she had
thought of the luxuries which had been thrown in Ayala's way. There
had been a regret,--not that Ayala should have them but that she
should have missed them. Money she declared that she despised;--but
the easy luxury of the bijou was sweet to her memory.

Now it was suggested to her suddenly that she was to exchange the
poverty for the luxury, and to return to a mode of life in which
her mind might be devoted to things of beauty. The very sce