Daughter of the artist Egbert Dormer and niece of Lady Tringle and Reginald Dosett. After the death of her parents she lived first with the wealthy Tringles, and then with the Dosetts in comparative poverty.

Her love affairs, first with Tom Tringle, then with Captain Batsby, and finally with Colonel Stubbs, form the pattern of the story.

Heroine of Ayala’s Angel.

"Ayala the romantic; Ayala the poetic! ... Her long dark black locks ... were already known as the loveliest locks in London. She sang as though Nature had intended her to be a singing-bird ... and flatterers had already begun to say that she was born to be the one great female artist of the world. Her hands, her feet, her figure were perfect. Though she was as yet but nineteen, London had already begun to talk of Ayala Dormer" - Ayala's Angel.