thinks about it, though. It's just
beautiful, Eugene!"

Probably if her brother George had been with them at the little table,
he would have made known what he thought about herself, for it must
inevitably have struck him that she was in the midst of one of those
"times" when she looked "exactly fourteen years old." Lucy served as
a proxy for Amberson, perhaps, when she leaned toward George and
whispered: "Did you ever see anything so lovely?"

"As what?" George inquired, not because he misunderstood, but because he
wished to prolong the pleasant neighbourliness of whispering.

"As your mother! Think of her doing that! She's a darling! And
papa"--here she imperfectly repressed a tendency to laugh--"papa looks
as if he were either going to explode or utter loud sobs!"

Eugene commanded his features, however, and they resumed their customary
apprehensiveness. "I used to write verse," he said--"if you remember--"

"Yes," Isabel interrupted gently. "I remember."

"I don't recall that I've written any for twenty years or so," he
continued. "But I'm almost thinking I could do it again, to thank you
for making a factory visit into such a kind celebration."

"Gracious!" Lucy whispered, giggling. "Aren't they sentimental"

"People that age always are," George returned. "They get sentimental
over anything at all. Factories or restaurants, it doesn't matter what!"

And both of them were seized with fits of laughter which they managed
to cover under the general movement of departure, as Isabel had risen to
go.

Outside, upon the crowded street, George helped Lucy into his runabout,
and drove off, waving triumphantly, and laughing at Eugene who was
struggling with the engine of his car, in the tonneau of which Isabel
and Fanny had established themselves. "Looks like a hand-organ man
grinding away for pennies," said George, as the runabout turned the
corner and into National Avenue. "I'll still take a horse, any day."

He was not so cocksure, half an hour later, on an open road, when a
siren whistle wailed behind him, and before the sound had died away,
Eugene's car, coming from behind with what seemed fairly like one
long leap, went by the runabout and dwindled almost instantaneously in
perspective, with a lace handkerchief in a black-gloved hand fluttering
sweet derision as it was swept onward into minuteness--a mere white
speck--and then out of sight.

George was undoubtedly impressed. "Your Father does know how to dr