itting of Aunt Dosett.
Ayala had not been brought into contact with gin and water.

"Oh, Ayala!" she said, as they were going down to dinner together,
"do struggle; do bear it. Tell Aunt Emmeline. She will like you to
tell her. If Augusta wants you to go anywhere, do go. 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 would go anywhere for Augusta's
telling; but she would do her best to satisfy Aunt Emmeline. Then
they went to dinner, and after dinner Lucy was taken home without
further words between them.

Ayala wrote long letters on her journey, full of what she saw, and
full of her companions. From Paris she wrote, and then from Turin,
and then again on their immediate arrival at Rome. Her letters were
most imprudent as written from the close vicinity of her aunt and
cousin. It was such a comfort that that oaf Tom had been left behind.
Uncle Tringle was angry because he did not get what he liked to eat.
Aunt Emmeline gave that courier such a terrible life, sending for him
every quarter 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 to despise. There was contempt, most foolish
contempt, for all the Tringles; but, luckily, there had been no
quarrelling. Then it seemed that both in Paris and in Florence Ayala
had bought pretty things, from which it was to be argued that her
uncle had provided her liberally with money. One pretty thing had
been sent from Paris to Lucy, which could not have been bought for
less than many franks. It would not be fair that Ayala should take so
much without giving something in return.

Lucy knew that she too should give something in return. Though
Kingsbury Crescent was not attractive, though Aunt Dosett was not to
her a pleasant companion, she had begun to realise the fact that it
behoved her to be grateful, if only for the food she ate, and for the
bed on which she slept. As she thought of all that Ayala owed she
remembered also he