Aunt Frances, very stiff and straight in her jetted dinner gown, resumed, "I wish it were possible to give girls a dose of common sense, as you give them cough syrup."
"Mother!"
But Aunt Frances, mounted on her grievance, rode it through the salad course. She had wanted Grace to marry—her beauty and her family had entitled her to an excellent match. But Grace was single still, holding her own against all her mother's arguments, maintaining in this one thing her right to independent action.
Isabelle, straining her ears to hear what it was all about, asked Mary, late that night, "What upset Frances at dinner?"
Mary told her.
"Do you think I'm wrong, Aunt Isabelle?" she asked.
The gentle lady sighed, "If you feel that it is right, it must be right for you. But you're trying to be all head, dear child. And there's your heart to reckon with."
Mary flushed "I know. But I don't want my heart to speak—yet."
Aunt Isabelle patted her hand. "I think it has—spoken," she said softly.
Mary clung to her. "How did you know?"