, lest he should be too old, Augusta was not well pleased.

"Lord Boardotrade was much older when he began," said Augusta. "His
friends, indeed, tell Septimus that he should not push himself
forward too quickly. But I don't think that I ever came across any
one who was so ignorant of such things as you are, Ayala."

"Perhaps he is not so old as he looks," said Ayala. After this it may
be imagined that there was not close friendship between the cousins.
Augusta's mind was filled with a strong conception as to Ayala's
ingratitude. The houseless, penniless orphan had been taken in, and
had done nothing but make herself disagreeable. Young! No doubt she
was young. But had she been as old as Methuselah she could not have
been more insolent. It did not, however, matter to her, Augusta.
She was going away; but it would be terrible to her mamma and to
Gertrude! Thus it was that Augusta spoke of her cousin to her mother.

And then there came another trouble, which was more troublesome to
Ayala even than the other. Tom Tringle, who was in the house in
Lombard Street, who was the only son, and heir to the title and no
doubt to much of the wealth, had chosen to take Ayala's part and to
enlist himself as her special friend. Ayala had, at first, accepted
him as a cousin, and had consented to fraternise with him. Then, on
some unfortunate day, there had been some word or look which she had
failed not to understand, and immediately she had become afraid of
Tom. Tom was not like Isadore Hamel,--was very far, indeed, from that
idea of a perfect lover which Ayala's mind had conceived; but he was
by no means a lout, or an oaf, or an idiot, as Ayala in her letters
to her sister had described him. He had been first at Eton and then
at Oxford, and having spent a great deal of money recklessly, and
done but little towards his education, had been withdrawn and put
into the office. His father declared of him now that he would do
fairly well in the world. He had a taste for dress, and kept four or
five hunters which he got but little credit by riding. He made a fuss
about his shooting, but did not shoot much. He was stout and awkward
looking,--very like his father, but without that settled air which
age gives to heavy men. In appearance he was not the sort of lover
to satisfy the preconceptions of such a girl as Ayala. But he was
good-natured and true. At last he became to her terribly true. His
love, such as it seemed at first, was absurd to h