and its complications account for a staggering 25 percent

"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."

"Poor Tom!" ejaculated the rejected lover's mother.

"I am very sorry if my cousin is displeased."

"He is ill -- terribly ill. He will have to go away and travel all about the world, and I don't know that ever he will come back again. I am sure this Stubbs will never love you as he has done."