"Because they are better than Tom Tringle. I read somewhere about there being seven houses of the Devil, each one being lower and worse than the other. Tom would be the lowest,—the lowest,—the lowest."
"Ayala, my darling."
"Do not tell me that I ought to marry Tom," said Ayala, almost standing off in anger from the proferred kiss. "Do you think that I could love him?"
"I think you could if you tried, because he is loveable. It is so much to be good, and then he loves you truly. After all, it is something to have everything nice around you. You have not been made to be poor and uncomfortable. I fear that it must be bad with you here."
"It is bad."
"I wish I could have stayed, Ayala. I am more tranquil than you, and could have borne it better."
"It is bad. It is one of the houses,—but not the lowest. I can eat my heart out here, peaceably, and die with a great needle in my hand and a towel in my lap. But if I were to marry him I should kill myself the first hour after I had gone away with him. Things! What would things be with such a monster as that leaning over one? Would you marry him?" In answer to this, Lucy made no immediate reply. "Why don't you say? You want me to marry him. Would you?"
"No."
"Then why should I?"
"I could not try to love him."