ecause of Tom."

"Tom is too good for you," exclaimed Aunt Emmeline, who could not
bear to have her son depreciated even by the girl whom she did not
wish to marry him.

"I didn't say he wasn't," said Ayala, bursting into tears. "The
Archbishop of Canterbury would be too good for me, but I don't want
to marry him." Then she got up and ran out of the room in order that
she might weep over her troubles in the privacy of her own chamber.
She was thoroughly convinced that she was being ill-used. No one had
a right to tell her that any man was too good for her unless she
herself should make pretensions to the man. It was an insult to
her even to connect her name with that of any man unless she had
done something to connect it. In her own estimation her cousin Tom
was infinitely beneath her,--worlds beneath her,--a denizen of an
altogether inferior race, such as the Beast was to the Beauty! Not
that Ayala had ever boasted to herself of her own face or form. It
was not in that respect that she likened herself to the Beauty when
she thought of Tom as the Beast. Her assumed superiority existed in
certain intellectual or rather artistic and aesthetic gifts,--certain
celestial gifts. But as she had boasted of them to no one, as she
had never said that she and her cousin were poles asunder in their
tastes, poles asunder in their feelings, poles asunder in their
intelligence, was it not very, very cruel that she should be told,
first that she encouraged him, and then that she was not good enough
for him? Cinderella did not ask to have the Prince for her husband.
When she had her own image of which no one could rob her, and was
content with that, why should they treat her in this cruel way?

"I am afraid you are having a great deal of trouble with her," said
Lady Tringle to Mrs. Dosett.

"No, indeed. Of course she is romantic, which is very objectionable."

"Quite detestable!" said Lady Tringle.

"But she has been brought up like that, so that it is not her fault.
Now she endeavours to do her best."

"She is so upsetting."

"She is angry because her cousin persecutes her."

"Persecutes her, indeed! Tom is in a position to ask any girl to be
his wife. He can give her a home of her own, and a good income. She
ought to be proud of the offer instead of speaking like that. But
nobody wants her to have him."

"He wants it, I suppose."

"Just taken by her baby face;--that's all. It won't last, and she
needn't think so. Howeve