over to her
sister-in-law. Invested, it would yield something better than nine
hundred dollars a year, and thus she was assured of becoming neither a
pauper nor a dependent, but proved to be, as Amberson said, adding his
efforts to the cheering up of Fanny, "an heiress, after all, in spite of
rolling mills and the devil." She was unable to smile, and he continued
his humane gayeties. "See what a wonderfully desirable income nine
hundred dollars is, Fanny: a bachelor, to be in your class, must have
exactly forty-nine thousand one hundred a year. Then, you see, all you
need to do, in order to have fifty thousand a year, is to be a little
encouraging when some bachelor in your class begins to show by his
haberdashery what he wants you to think about him!"

She looked at him wanly, murmured a desolate response--she had "sewing
to do"--and left the room; while Amberson shook his head ruefully at
his sister. "I've often thought that humor was not my forte," he sighed.
"Lord! She doesn't 'cheer up' much!"

The collegian did not return to his home for the holidays. Instead,
Isabel joined him, and they went South for the two weeks. She was proud
of her stalwart, good-looking son at the hotel where they stayed, and it
was meat and drink to her when she saw how people stared at him in the
lobby and on the big verandas--indeed, her vanity in him was so dominant
that she was unaware of their staring at her with more interest and an
admiration friendlier than George evoked. Happy to have him to herself
for this fortnight, she loved to walk with him, leaning upon his arm, to
read with him, to watch the sea with him--perhaps most of all she liked
to enter the big dining room with him.

Yet both of them felt constantly the difference between this
Christmastime and other Christmas-times of theirs--in all, it was a
sorrowful holiday. But when Isabel came East for George's commencement,
in June, she brought Lucy with her--and things began to seem different,
especially when George Amberson arrived with Lucy's father on Class Day.
Eugene had been in New York, on business; Amberson easily persuaded
him to this outing; and they made a cheerful party of it, with the new
graduate of course the hero and center of it all.

His uncle was a fellow alumnus. "Yonder was where I roomed when I was
here," he said, pointing out one of the university buildings to Eugene.
"I don't know whether George would let my admirers place a tablet to
mark the spo