he didn't like dogs except rat-terriers,
because a rat-terrier cleans up the mice, but she kept on at him, and
finally he said all right she could have one. Then, by George! she says
Ambersons bought their dog, and you can't get one without paying for it:
they cost from fifty to a hundred dollars up! Old Aleck wanted to know
if I ever heard of anybody buyin' a dog before, because, of course, even
a Newfoundland or a setter you can usually get somebody to give you one.
He says he saw some sense in payin' a nigger a dime, or even a
quarter, to drown a dog for you, but to pay out fifty dollars and maybe
more--well, sir, he like to choked himself to death, right there in
my office! Of course everybody realizes that Major Amberson is a fine
business man, but what with throwin' money around for dogs, and every
which and what, some think all this style's bound to break him up, if
his family don't quit!"

One citizen, having thus discoursed to a visitor, came to a thoughtful
pause, and then added, "Does seem pretty much like squandering, yet when
you see that dog out walking with this Miss Isabel, he seems worth the
money."

"What's she look like?"

"Well, sir," said the citizen, "she's not more than just about eighteen
or maybe nineteen years old, and I don't know as I know just how to put
it--but she's kind of a delightful lookin' young lady!"

Chapter II

Another citizen said an eloquent thing about Miss Isabel Amberson's
looks. This was Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster, the foremost literary
authority and intellectual leader of the community---for both the daily
newspapers thus described Mrs. Foster when she founded the Women's
Tennyson Club; and her word upon art, letters, and the drama was
accepted more as law than as opinion. Naturally, when "Hazel Kirke"
finally reached the town, after its long triumph in larger places, many
people waited to hear what Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster thought of it
before they felt warranted in expressing any estimate of the play. In
fact, some of them waited in the lobby of the theatre, as they came out,
and formed an inquiring group about her.

"I didn't see the play," she informed them.

"What! Why, we saw you, right in the middle of the fourth row!"

"Yes," she said, smiling, "but I was sitting just behind Isabelle
Amberson. I couldn't look at anything except her wavy brown hair and the
wonderful back of her neck."

The ineligible young men of the town (they were all ineligib