"Yes, I do. It is ignoble. Nature should have managed it differently. We ought to have sucked it in from the atmosphere through our fingers and hairs, as the trees do by their leaves. There should have been no butchers, and no grease, and no nasty smells from the kitchen,--and no gin." This was worse than all,--this allusion to the mild but unfashionable stimulant to which Mr. Dosett had been reduced by his good nature. "You are flying in the face of the Creator, Miss," said Aunt Margaret, in her most angry voice,--"in the face of the Creator who made everything, and ordained what his creatures should eat and drink by His infinite wisdom." "Nevertheless," said Ayala, "I think we might have done without boiled mutton." Then she turned to some articles of domestic needlework which were in her lap so as to show that in spite of the wickedness of her opinions she did not mean to be idle. But Mrs. Dosett, in her wrath, snatched the work from her niece's hands and carried it out of the room, thus declaring that not even a pillow-case in her house should owe a stitch to the hands of a girl so ungrateful and so blasphemous. The wrath wore off soon. Ayala, though not contrite was meek, and walked home with her aunt on the following morning, patiently carrying a pound of butter, six eggs, and a small lump of bacon in a basket. After that the pillow-case was recommitted to her. But there still was left evidence enough that the girl's mind had been upset by the luxuries of Brook Street,--evidence to which Aunt Margaret paid very much attention, insisting upon it in her colloquies with her husband. "I think that a little amusement is good for young people," said Uncle Reginald, weakly. "And for old people too. No doubt about it, if they can get it so as not to do them any harm at the same time. Nothing can be good for a young woman which unfits her for that state of life to which it has pleased God to call her. Ayala has to live with us. No doubt there was a struggle when she first came from your sister, Lady Tringle, but she made it gallantly, and I gave her great credit. She was just falling into a quiet mode of life when there came this invitation from the Marchesa Baldoni. Now she has come back quite an altered person, and the struggle has to be made all over again." Uncle Reginald again expressed his opinion that young people ought to have a little amusement, but he was not strong enough to insist very much upon his theory. It certainly, however, was true that Ayala, though she still struggled, had been very much disturbed by the visit.