"Engaged!"
"Yes, Aunt Emmeline;—engaged. I wrote to you on Tuesday to tell you all about it. I hope you and Uncle Tom will approve. There cannot possibly be any reason against it,—except only that I have nothing to give him in return; that is in the way of money. Colonel Stubbs, Aunt Emmeline, is not what Uncle Tom will call a rich man, but everybody here says that he has got quite enough to be comfortable. If he had nothing in the world it could not make any difference to me. I don't understand how anybody is to love any one or not to love him just because he is rich or poor."
"But you are absolutely engaged!" exclaimed Lady Tringle.
"Oh dear yes. Perhaps you would like to ask Lady Albury about it. He did want it before, you know."
"But now you are engaged to him?" In answer to this Ayala thought it sufficient simply to nod her head. "It is all over then?"
"All over!" exclaimed Ayala. "It is just going to begin."
"All over for poor Tom," said Lady Tringle.
"Oh yes. It was always over for him, Aunt Emmeline. I told him ever so many times that it never could be so. Don't you know, Aunt Emmeline, that I did?"
"But you said that to this man just the same."
"Aunt Emmeline," said Ayala, putting on all the serious dignity which she knew how to assume, "I am engaged to Colonel Stubbs, and nothing on earth that anybody can say can change it. If you want to hear all about it, Lady Albury will tell you. She knows that you are my aunt, and therefore she will be quite willing to talk to you. Only nothing that anybody can say can change it."