oned,
but she was conceded presence, though not majesty; she had moreover, as
people said, improved since her marriage, and the two things in life
of which she was most distinctly conscious were her husband's force in
argument and her sister Isabel's originality. "I've never kept up with
Isabel--it would have taken all my time," she had often remarked;
in spite of which, however, she held her rather wistfully in sight;
watching her as a motherly spaniel might watch a free greyhound. "I want
to see her safely married--that's what I want to see," she frequently
noted to her husband.

"Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry her,"
Edmund Ludlow was accustomed to answer in an extremely audible tone.

"I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite ground.
I don't see what you've against her except that she's so original."

"Well, I don't like originals; I like translations," Mr. Ludlow had more
than once replied. "Isabel's written in a foreign tongue. I can't make
her out. She ought to marry an Armenian or a Portuguese."

"That's just what I'm afraid she'll do!" cried Lilian, who thought
Isabel capable of anything.

She listened with great interest to the girl's account of Mrs.
Touchett's appearance and in the evening prepared to comply with their
aunt's commands. Of what Isabel then said no report has remained, but
her sister's words had doubtless prompted a word spoken to her husband
as the two were making ready for their visit. "I do hope immensely
she'll do something handsome for Isabel; she has evidently taken a great
fancy to her."

"What is it you wish her to do?" Edmund Ludlow asked. "Make her a big
present?"

"No indeed; nothing of the sort. But take an interest in her--sympathise
with her. She's evidently just the sort of person to appreciate her. She
has lived so much in foreign society; she told Isabel all about it. You
know you've always thought Isabel rather foreign."

"You want her to give her a little foreign sympathy, eh? Don't you think
she gets enough at home?"

"Well, she ought to go abroad," said Mrs. Ludlow. "She's just the person
to go abroad."

"And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?"

"She has offered to take her--she's dying to have Isabel go. But what
I want her to do when she gets her there is to give her all the
advantages. I'm sure all we've got to do," said Mrs. Ludlow, "is to give
her a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"A chanc