urn
with people so wealthy and luxurious? And yet were he to yield in the
least how could he face his wife on his return home to the Crescent?
"You are very kind, Lady Albury," he said.

"We particularly wish to have her about the end of the first week in
November," said the lady. "Her friend Nina Baldoni will be there, and
one or two others whom she knows. We shall try to be a little gay for
a week or two."

"I have no doubt it would be gay, and we at home are very dull."

"Do you not think a little gaiety good for young people?" said her
ladyship, using the very argument which poor Mr. Dosett had so often
attempted to employ on Ayala's behalf.

"Yes; a little gaiety," he said, as though deprecating the excessive
amount of hilarity which he imagined to prevail at Stalham.

"Of course you do," said Lady Albury. "Poor little girl! I have heard
so much about her, and of all your goodness to her. Mrs. Dosett I
know is another mother to her; but still a little country air could
not but be beneficial. Do say that she shall come to us, Mr. Dosett."

Then Mr. Dosett felt that, disagreeable as it was, he must preach the
sermon which his wife had preached to him, and he did preach it. He
spoke timidly of his own poverty, and the need which there was that
Ayala should share it. He spoke a word of the danger which might come
from luxury, and of the discontent which would be felt when the girl
returned to her own home. Something he added of the propriety of like
living with like, and ended by praying that Ayala might be excused.
The words came from him with none of that energy which his wife could
have used,--were uttered in a low melancholy drone; but still they
were words hard to answer, and called upon Lady Albury for all her
ingenuity in finding an argument against them.

But Lady Albury was strong-minded, and did find an argument. "You
musn't be angry with me," she said, "if I don't quite agree with you.
Of course you wish to do the best you can for this dear child."

"Indeed I do, Lady Albury."

"How is anything then to be done for her if she remains shut up in
your house? You do not, if I understand, see much company
yourselves."

"None at all."

"You won't be angry with me for my impertinence in alluding to it."

"Not in the least. It is the fact that we live altogether to
ourselves."

"And the happiest kind of life too for married people," said Lady
Albury, who was accustomed to fill her house in the count