who began to feel something like
natural jealousy. "I suppose I ought to do something for a girl if
I take her by the hand," said Sir Thomas, roughly. "If she gets a
husband I will give her something, and that will do as well." Nothing
more was said about it, but when Sir Thomas went up to town the
codicil was added to his will.

Ayala was foolish rather than ungrateful, not understanding the
nature of the family to which she was relegated. Before she had been
taken away she had promised Lucy that she would be "obedient" to her
aunt. There had hardly been such a word as obedience known at the
bijou. If any were obedient, it was the mother and the father to the
daughters. Lucy, and Ayala as well, had understood something of this;
and therefore Ayala had promised to be obedient to her aunt. "And to
Uncle Thomas," Lucy had demanded, with an imploring embrace. "Oh,
yes," said Ayala, dreading her uncle at that time. She soon learned
that no obedience whatsoever was exacted from Sir Thomas. She had to
kiss him morning and evening, and then to take whatever presents he
made her. An easy uncle he was to deal with, and she almost learned
to love him. Nor was Aunt Emmeline very exigeant, though she was
fantastic and sometimes disagreeable. But Augusta was the great
difficulty. Lucy had not told her to obey Augusta, and Augusta she
would not obey. Now Augusta demanded obedience.

"You never ordered me," Ayala had said to Lucy when they met in
London as the Tringles were passing through. At the bijou there had
been a republic, in which all the inhabitants and all the visitors
had been free and equal. Such republicanism had been the very
mainspring of life at the bijou. Ayala loved equality, and she
specially felt that it should exist among sisters. Do anything for
Lucy? Oh, yes, indeed, anything; abandon anything; but for Lucy as a
sister among sisters, not for an elder as from a younger! And if she
were not bound to serve Lucy then certainly not Augusta. But Augusta
liked to be served. On one occasion she sent Ayala upstairs, and on
another she sent Ayala down-stairs. Ayala went, but determined to
be equal with her cousin. On the morning following, in the presence
of Aunt Emmeline and of Gertrude, in the presence also of two other
ladies who were visiting at the house, she asked Augusta if she would
mind running upstairs and fetching her scrap-book! She had been
thinking about it all the night and all the morning, plucking up he