“True, dear, and she will also be very valuable as an interpreter in our shopping and sightseeing expeditions abroad. But to turn to more agreeable things. I want you, Isabel, to do your utmost to make a brilliant match while we are in Europe. With your father’s purse, your face, figure, and appearance, I think you ought to win somebody worth having.”
“I hope I may, mamma; I should really enjoy being ‘lady’ somebody,” and the vain girl got up and sailed over to the full-length mirror to survey herself.
“Is it not time for Wilbur to come, mamma?” she asked, presently.
“Yes; he ought to have been here an hour ago,” answered Mrs. Coolidge, glancing at her watch.
Scarce were the words uttered when the doorbell gave forth a clamorous peal; another moment, and there was a manly step on the stair, a deep rich voice called “Mother!” “Isabel!” then the door swung open, and the only son and heir was received with open arms and joyous exclamations of greeting.
Wilbur Coolidge was an exceedingly handsome young man of twenty-two years, with a face that challenged all criticism—bright, careless, defiant, full of humor, and possessing a gleam of poetry—a face that girls judge instantly and always admire. He had a frank clear eye of deepest blue, brown hair tinged with gold, a smiling mouth, from which, when he spoke, there gleamed two rows of white, handsome teeth. Yet it was a mouth one could not quite trust—there was something wanting which made one feel that he lacked depth, that there was no great chivalry in his nature, no grand treasure of manly truth, no touch of heroism in his soul. There were few women who would have read him thus critically, yet Brownie did at a glance, when, descending the stairs arm in arm with his sister Isabel, they met face to face, and she was obliged to present him to her.
“My brother, Miss Douglas,” she said, briefly and coldly, and with a haughty lifting of her head.
Miss Douglas greeted him with quiet politeness, and passed on; but not before she had caught his stare of surprise and look of admiration as his eyes for a moment rested on her face, then swept her dainty form from head to foot.
“And who is Miss Douglas?” he asked, after they had passed beyond her hearing.
“Oh, she is a young person whom grandpa came across in one of the public libraries, and persuaded papa to secure as governess to the girls,” Miss Isabel answered, with a yawn.