f course I don't agree with him in the
way he speaks of you, dear--except about the angel! I don't agree with
some of the things he implies. You've always been unselfish--nobody
knows that better than your mother. When Fanny was left with nothing,
you were so quick and generous to give up what really should have come
to you, and--"

"And yet," George broke in, "you see what he implies about me. Don't you
think, really, that this was a pretty insulting letter for that man to
be asking you to hand your son?"

"Oh, no!" she cried. "You can see how fair he means to be, and he didn't
ask for me to give it to you. It was brother George who--"

"Never mind that, now! You say he tries to be fair, and yet do you
suppose it ever occurs to him that I'm doing my simple duty? That I'm
doing what my father would do if he were alive? That I'm doing what my
father would ask me to do if he could speak from his grave out yonder?
Do you suppose it ever occurs to that man for one minute that I'm
protecting my mother?" George raised his voice, advancing upon the
helpless lady fiercely; and she could only bend her head before him. "He
talks about my 'Will'--how it must be beaten down; yes, and he asks my
mother to do that little thing to please him! What for? Why does he want
me 'beaten' by my mother? Because I'm trying to protect her name! He's
got my mother's name bandied up and down the streets of this town till I
can't step in those streets without wondering what every soul I meet is
thinking of me and of my family, and now he wants you to marry him so
that every gossip in town will say 'There! What did I tell you? I guess
that proves it's true!' You can't get away from it; that's exactly what
they'd say, and this man pretends he cares for you, and yet asks you to
marry him and give them the right to say it. He says he and you don't
care what they say, but I know better! He may not care-probably he's
that kind--but you do. There never was an Amberson yet that would let
the Amberson name go trailing in the dust like that! It's the proudest
name in this town and it's going to stay the proudest; and I tell you
that's the deepest thing in my nature--not that I'd expect Eugene Morgan
to understand--the very deepest thing in my nature is to protect that
name, and to fight for it to the last breath when danger threatens it,
as it does now--through my mother!" He turned from her, striding up
and down and tossing his arms about, in a tumult of