“Pecking?” Isabel laughed. “What a word to use about Georgie! I think I never knew a more angelically amiable disposition in my life!”
Miss Fanny echoed her sister-in-law’s laugh, but it was a rueful echo, and not sweet. “He’s amiable to you!” she said. “That’s all the side of him you ever happen to see. And why wouldn’t he be amiable to anybody that simply fell down and worshipped him every minute of her life? Most of us would!”
“Isn’t he worth worshipping? Just look at him! Isn’t he charming with Lucy! See how hard he ran to get it when she dropped her handkerchief back there.”
“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you about George!” said Miss Fanny. “I’m fond enough of him, for that matter. He can be charming, and he’s certainly stunning looking, if only—”
“Let the ‘if only’ go, dear,” Isabel suggested good-naturedly. “Let’s talk about that dinner you thought I should—”
“I?” Miss Fanny interrupted quickly. “Didn’t you want to give it yourself?”
“Indeed, I did, my dear!” said Isabel heartily. “I only meant that unless you had proposed it, perhaps I wouldn’t—”
But here Eugene came for her to dance, and she left the sentence uncompleted. Holiday dances can be happy for youth renewed as well as for youth in bud—and yet it was not with the air of a rival that Miss Fanny watched her brother’s wife dancing with the widower. Miss Fanny’s eyes narrowed a little, but only as if her mind engaged in a hopeful calculation. She looked pleased.