n,
and of how lovely she looked in her mourning. He thought of Lucy, whom
he had seen only twice, and he could not help feeling that in these
quiet interviews he had appeared to her as tinged with heroism--she had
shown, rather than said, how brave she thought him in his sorrow. But
what came most vividly to George's mind, during these retrospections,
was the despairing face of his Aunt Fanny. Again and again he thought of
it; he could not avoid its haunting. And for days, after he got back
to college, the stricken likeness of Fanny would appear before him
unexpectedly, and without a cause that he could trace in his immediately
previous thoughts. Her grief had been so silent, yet it had so amazed
him.

George felt more and more compassion for this ancient antagonist of his,
and he wrote to his mother about her:

I'm afraid poor Aunt Fanny might think now father's gone we won't want
her to live with us any longer and because I always teased her so much
she might think I'd be for turning her out. I don't know where on earth
she'd go or what she could live on if we did do something like this, and
of course we never would do such a thing, but I'm pretty sure she had
something of the kind on her mind. She didn't say anything, but the way
she looked is what makes me think so. Honestly, to me she looked just
scared sick. You tell her there isn't any danger in the world of my
treating her like that. Tell her everything is to go on just as it
always has. Tell her to cheer up!

Chapter XV

Isabel did more for Fanny than telling her to cheer up. Everything that
Fanny inherited from her father, old Aleck Minafer, had been invested
in Wilbur's business; and Wilbur's business, after a period of illness
corresponding in dates to the illness of Wilbur's body, had died just
before Wilbur did. George Amberson and Fanny were both "wiped out to
a miracle of precision," as Amberson said. They "owned not a penny and
owed not a penny," he continued, explaining his phrase. "It's like the
moment just before drowning: you're not under water and you're not out
of it. All you know is that you're not dead yet."

He spoke philosophically, having his "prospects" from his father to fall
back upon; but Fanny had neither "prospects" nor philosophy. However,
a legal survey of Wilbur's estate revealed the fact that his life
insurance was left clear of the wreck; and Isabel, with the cheerful
consent of her son, promptly turned this salvage