"You may be sure she will not keep it," said Mrs. Dosett, "unless she should intend to accept your hand. Of that I can hold out no hope to you. There is a matter, Tom, which I think I should tell you as you are so straightforward in your offer. Another gentleman has asked her to marry him." "She has accepted him!" exclaimed Tom. "No, she has not accepted him. She has refused him." "Then I'm just where I was," said Tom. "She has refused him, but I think that she is in a sort of way attached to him; and though he too has been refused I imagine that his chance is better than yours." "And who the d---- is he?" said Tom, jumping up from his seat in great excitement. "Tom!" exclaimed Mrs. Dosett. "I beg your pardon; but you see this is very important. Who is the fellow?" "He is one Colonel Jonathan Stubbs." "Who?" "Colonel Jonathan Stubbs." "Impossible! It can't be Colonel Stubbs. I know Colonel Stubbs." "I can assure you it is true, Tom. I have had a letter from a lady,--a relative of Colonel Stubbs,--telling me the whole story." "Colonel Stubbs!" he said. "That passes anything I ever heard. She has refused him?" "Yes, she has refused him." "And has not accepted him since?" "She certainly has not accepted him yet." "You may give her the bracelet all the same," said Tom, hurrying out of the room. That Colonel Stubbs should have made an offer to Ayala, and yet have accepted his, Tom Tringle's, confidence! CHAPTER XXXII. TOM'S DESPAIR. The reader will understand that the fate of the necklace was very soon decided. Ayala declared that it was very beautiful. She had, indeed, a pretty taste for diamonds, and would have been proud enough to call this necklace her own; but, as she declared to her aunt, she would not accept Tom though he were made of diamonds from head to foot. Accept Tom, when she could not even bring herself to think of becoming the wife of Jonathan Stubbs! If Colonel Stubbs could not be received by her imagination as an Angel of Light, how immeasurably distant from anything angelic must be Tom Tringle! "Of course it must go back," she said, when the question had to be decided as to the future fate of the necklace. As a consequence poor Mr. Dosett was compelled to make a special journey into the City, and to deposit a well-sealed parcel in the hands of Tom Tringle himself. "Your cousin sends her kind regards," he said, "but cannot bring herself to accept your magnificent present."