"I thought you did."

"It was a dreadful muddle, Aunt Margaret;--but it has come right at last, and we had better not talk about that part of it."

"I was so sure you didn't like him."

"Not like him? I always liked him better than anybody else in the world that I ever saw."

"Dear me!"

"Of course I shouldn't say so if it hadn't come right at last. I may say whatever I please about it now, and I declare that I always loved him. A girl can be such a fool! I was, I know. I hope you are glad, aunt."

"Of course I am. I am glad of anything that makes you happy. It seemed such a pity that, when so many gentlemen were falling in love with you all round, you couldn't like anybody."

"But I did like somebody, Aunt Margaret. And I did like the best,--didn't I?" In answer to this Mrs. Dosett made no reply, having always had an aunt's partiality for poor Tom, in spite of all his chains.

Her uncle's congratulations were warmer even than her aunt's.

"My dear girl," he said, "I am rejoiced indeed that you should have before you such a prospect of happiness. I always felt how sad for you was your residence here, with two such homely persons as your aunt and myself."

"I have always been happy with you," said Ayala,--perhaps straining the truth a little in her anxiety to be courteous. "And I know," she added, "how much Lucy and I have always owed you since poor papa's death."

"Nevertheless, it has been dull for a young girl like you. Now you will have your own duties, and if you endeavour to do them properly the world will never be dull to you." And then there were some few words about the wedding. "We have no feeling, my dear," said her uncle, "except to do the best we can for you. We should have been glad to see you married from here if that had suited. But, as this lover of yours has grand friends of his own, I dare say their place may be the better." Ayala could hardly explain to her uncle that she had acceded to Lady Albury's proposal because, by doing so, she would spare him the necessary expense of the wedding.

But Ayala's great delight was in meeting her sister. The two girls had not seen each other since the engagement of either of them had been ratified by their friends. The winter and spring, as pa.s.sed by Lucy at Merle Park, had been very unhappy for her. Things at Merle Park had not been pleasant to any of the residents there, and Lucy had certainly had her share of the unpleasantness. Her letters to Ayala had not been triumphant when Aunt Emmeline had more than once expressed her wish to be rid of her, and when the news reached her that Uncle Tom and Hamel had failed to be gracious to each other.

Nor had Ayala written in a spirit of joy before she had been able to recognise the Angel of Light in Jonathan Stubbs. But now they were to meet after all their miseries, and each could be triumphant.

It was hard for them to know exactly how to begin. To Lucy, Isadore Hamel was, at the present moment, the one hero walking the face of this sublunary globe; and to Ayala, as we all know, Jonathan Stubbs was an Angel of Light, and, therefore, more even than a hero. As each spoke, the "He's" intended took a different personification; so that to any one less interested than the young ladies themselves there might be some confusion as to which "He" might at that moment be under discussion. "It was bad," said Lucy, "when Uncle Tom told him to sell those magnificent conceptions of his brain by auction!"

"I did feel for him certainly," said Ayala.

"And then when he was constrained to say that he would take me at once without any preparation because Aunt Emmeline wanted me to go, I don't suppose any man ever behaved more beautifully than he did."

"Yes indeed," said Ayala. And then she felt herself constrained to change the subject by the introduction of an exaggerated superlative in her sister's narrative. Hamel, no doubt, had acted beautifully, but she was not disposed to agree that nothing could be more beautiful. "Oh, Lucy," she said, "I was so miserable when he went away after that walk in the wood. I thought he never would come back again when I had behaved so badly. But he did. Was not that grand in him?"

"I suppose he was very fond of you."

"I hope he was. I hope he is. But what should I have done if he had not come back? No other man would have come back after that. You never behaved unkindly to Isadore?"

"I think he would have come back a thousand times," said Lucy; "only I cannot imagine that I should ever have given him the necessity of coming back even a second. But then I had known him so much longer."

"It wasn't that I hadn't known him long enough," said Ayala. "I seemed to know all about him almost all at once. I knew how good he was, and how grand he was, long before I had left the Marchesa up in London. But I think it astounded me that such a one as he should care for me." And so it went on through an entire morning, each of the sisters feeling that she was bound to listen with rapt attention to the praises of the other's "him" if she wished to have an opportunity of singing those of her own.

But Lucy's marriage was to come first by more than two months, and therefore in that matter she was allowed precedence. And at her marriage Ayala would be present, whereas with Ayala's Lucy would have no personal concern. Though she did think that Uncle Tom had been worse than any Vandal in that matter of selling her lover's magnificent works, still she was ready to tell of his generosity. In a manner of his own he had sent the money which Hamel had so greatly needed, and had now come forward to provide, with a generous hand, for the immediate necessities, and more than the necessities, of the wedding. It was not only that she was to share the honours of the two wedding-cakes with Gertrude, and that she was to be taken as a bride from the gorgeous mansion in Queen's Gate, but that he had provided for her bridal needs almost as fully as for those of his own daughter. "Never mind what she'll be able to do afterwards," he said to his wife, who ventured on some slight remonstrance with him as to the unnecessary luxuries he was preparing for the wife of a poor man. "She won't be the worse for having a dozen new petticoats in her trunk, and, if she don't want to blow her nose with as many handkerchiefs this year as Gertrude does, she'll be able to keep them for next year." Then Aunt Emmeline obeyed without further hesitation the orders which were given her.

Nor was his generosity confined to the niece who for the last twelve months had been his property. Lucy was still living in Queen's Gate, though at this time she spent much of each day in Kingsbury Crescent, and on one occasion she brought with her a little note from Uncle Tom. "Dear Ayala," said the little note,

As you are going to be married too, you, I suppose, will want some new finery. I therefore send a cheque. Write your name on the back of it, and give it to your uncle. He will let you have the money as you want it.

Yours affectionately,

T. TRINGLE.

I hope your Colonel Stubbs will come and see me some day.

"You must go and see him," she said to her Colonel Stubbs, when he called one day in Kingsbury Crescent. "Only for him I shouldn't have any clothes to speak of at all, and I should have to be married in my old brown morning frock."

"It would be just as good as any other for my purpose," said the Colonel.

"But it wouldn't for mine, Sir. Fine feathers make fine birds, and I mean to be as fine as Lady Albury's big peac.o.c.k. So if you please you'll go to Queen's Gate, and Lombard Street too, and show yourself.

Oh, Jonathan, I shall be so proud that everybody who knows me should see what sort of a man has chosen to love me."

Then there was a joint visit paid by the two sisters to Mr. Hamel's studio,--an expedition which was made somewhat on the sly. Aunt Margaret in Kingsbury Crescent knew all about it, but Aunt Emmeline was kept in the dark. Even now, though the marriage was sanctioned and was so nearly at hand, Aunt Emmeline would not have approved of such a visit. She still regarded the sculptor as improper,--at any rate not sufficiently proper to be treated with full familiarity,--partly on account of his father's manifest improprieties, and partly because of his own relative poverty and unauthorised position in the world. But Aunt Margaret was more tolerant, and thought that the sister-in-law was ent.i.tled to visit the workshop in which her sister's future bread was to be earned.

And then, starting from Kingsbury Crescent, they could go in a cab; whereas any such proceeding emanating from Queen's Gate would have required the carriage. There was a wickedness in this starting off in a Hansom cab to call on an unmarried young man, doing it in a manner successfully concealed from Aunt Emmeline, on which Ayala expatiated with delight when she next saw Colonel Stubbs.

"You don't come and call on me," said the Colonel.

"What!--all the way down to Aldershot? I should like, but I don't quite dare to do that."

The visit was very successful. Though it was expected, Hamel was found in his artist's costume, with a blouse or loose linen tunic fitted close round his throat, and fastened with a belt round his waist. Lucy thought that in this apparel he was certainly as handsome as could ever have been any Apollo,--and, so thinking, had contrived her little plans in such a way that he should certainly be seen at his best. To her thinking Colonel Stubbs was not a handsome man.

Hamel's hair was nearly black, and she preferred dark hair. Hamel's features were regular, whereas the Colonel's hair was red, and he was known for a large mouth and broad nose, which were not obliterated though they were enlightened by the brightness of his eyes. "Yes,"

said Ayala to herself, as she looked at Hamel; "he is very good looking, but n.o.body would take him for an Angel of Light."

"Ayala has come to see you at your work," said Lucy, as they entered the studio.

"I am delighted to see her. Do you remember where we last met, Miss Dormer?"

"Miss Dormer, indeed," said Ayala. "I am not going to call you Mr.

Hamel. Yes; it was high up among the seats of the Coliseum. There has a great deal happened to us all since then."

"And I remember you at the bijou."

"I should think so. I knew then so well what was going to happen,"

said Ayala.

"What did you know?"

"That you and Lucy were to fall in love with each other."

"I had done my part of it already," said he.

"Hardly that, Isadore," said Lucy, "or you would not have pa.s.sed me in Kensington Gardens without speaking to me."

"But I did speak to you. It was then I learned where to find you."

"That was the second time. If I had remained away, as I ought to have done, I suppose you never would have found me."

Ayala was then taken round to see all those magnificent groups and figures which Sir Thomas would have disposed of at so many shillings apiece under the auctioneer's hammer. "It was cruel,--was it not?"