"Why shouldn't he recover?" asked Gertrude. "It's all in a person's mind. If he'd only make up his mind not to think about her the thing would be done, and there would be nothing the matter with him."
"There are twenty others, ever so much better than Ayala, would have him to-morrow," said his mother.
"And be glad to catch him," said Gertrude. "He's not like one of those who haven't got anything to make a wife comfortable with."
"As for Ayala," said Augusta, "she didn't deserve such good luck. I am told that that Colonel Stubbs can't afford to keep any kind of carriage for her. But then, to be sure, she has never been used to a carriage."
"Oh, Tom, do look up," said his mother, "and say that you will try to be happy."
"He'll be all right in New York," said Gertrude. "There's no place in the world, they say, where the girls put themselves forward so much, and make things so pleasant for the young men."
"He will soon find some one there," said Augusta, "with a deal more to say for herself than Ayala, and a great deal better-looking."
"I hope he will find some one who will really love him," said his mother.
Tom sat silent while he listened to all this encouragement, turning his face from one speaker to the other. It was continued, with many other similar promises of coming happiness, and assurances that he had been a gainer in losing all that he lost, when he suddenly turned sharply upon them, and strongly expressed his feelings to his sisters. "I don't believe that either of you know anything about it," he said.
"Don't know anything about what?" said Augusta, who as a lady who had been married over twelve months, and was soon about to become a mother, felt that she certainly did know all about it.