Ayala's Angel

If marriage be the proper ending for a novel,--the only ending, as this writer takes it to be, which is not discordant,--surely no tale was ever so properly ended, or with so full a concord, as this one. Infinite trouble has been taken not only in arranging these marriages but in joining like to like,--so that, if not happiness, at any rate sympathetic unhappiness, might be produced.

Plot closes by stacking matched marriages as formal concord — sister lines and Angel hunt resolved together — so plot scores 85.

The two girls were both pretty, but Lucy, who was twenty-one, was supposed to be simple and comparatively unattractive, whereas Ayala was credited,--as her somewhat romantic name might show,--with poetic charm and a taste for romance. Ayala when her father died was nineteen.

Simple Lucy vs poetic Ayala — cast split that drives every later choice of suitor — so cast scores 87.

In following the results of Tom's presentation of the necklace we have got beyond the period which our story is presumed to have reached. Tom was in durance during the Christmas week, but we must go back to the promise which had been made by her uncle, Sir Thomas, to Lucy about six weeks before that time.

Narrator rewinds past Tom's durance to Sir Thomas's promise — serial dilation around one crisis — so pace scores 84.

Ayala was quite willing to allow this assurance to pass current, as her Angel of Light was as yet neither alive nor dead. But she was quite certain,--wholly certain,--that when the Angel should come forth he would be superior to Lord George.

Angel 'neither alive nor dead' — comic metaphysics in social English — so prose scores 86.

The promise had extended only to an undertaking on the part of Sir Thomas to see Isadore Hamel if he would call at the house in Lombard Street at a certain hour on a certain day.

Lombard Street appointment as gate to marriage — City money as marriage world — so world scores 84.

When Egbert Dormer died he left his two daughters utterly penniless upon the world, and it must be said of Egbert Dormer that nothing else could have been expected of him.

Expected ruin before romance — comic fatalism launching sister plot — so hook scores 88.

If marriage be the proper ending for a novel,--the only ending, as this writer takes it to be, which is not discordant,--surely no tale was ever so properly ended, or with so full a concord, as this one.

Narrator theorizes marriage-ending as aesthetic law while multiplying matches — light metafiction inside comedy — so innov scores 82.

Infinite trouble has been taken not only in arranging these marriages but in joining like to like,--so that, if not happiness, at any rate sympathetic unhappiness, might be produced. Our two sisters will, it is trusted, be happy. They have chosen men from their hearts

Like-to-like join and heart-choice seal the Angel hunt — comedy ending as engineered concord — so ending scores 86.