t here?"

"Yes. I believe he was particularly a friend of your Uncle George; and
he didn't say so, but I imagine he must have known your mother very
well, too. He wasn't an inventor then; he was a young lawyer. The town
was smaller in those days, and I believe he was quite well known."

"I dare say. I've no doubt the family are all very glad to see him back,
especially if they used to have him at the house a good deal, as he told
you."

"I don't think he meant to boast of it," she said: "He spoke of it quite
calmly."

George stared at her for a moment in perplexity, then perceiving that
her intention was satirical, "Girls really ought to go to a man's
college," he said--"just a month or two, anyhow; It'd take some of the
freshness out of 'em!"

"I can't believe it," she retorted, as her partner for the next
dance arrived. "It would only make them a little politer on the
surface--they'd be really just as awful as ever, after you got to know
them a few minutes."

"What do you mean: 'after you got to know them a--'"

She was departing to the dance. "Janie and Mary Sharon told me all about
what sort of a little boy you were," she said, over her shoulder. "You
must think it out!" She took wing away on the breeze of the waltz, and
George, having stared gloomily after her for a few moments, postponed
filling an engagement, and strolled round the fluctuating outskirts of
the dance to where his uncle, George Amberson, stood smilingly watching,
under one of the rose-vine arches at the entrance to the room.

"Hello, young namesake," said the uncle. "Why lingers the laggard heel
of the dancer? Haven't you got a partner?"

"She's sitting around waiting for me somewhere," said George. "See here:
Who is this fellow Morgan that Aunt Fanny Minafer was dancing with a
while?"

Amberson laughed. "He's a man with a pretty daughter, Georgie. Meseemed
you've been spending the evening noticing something of that sort--or do
I err?"

"Never mind! What sort is he?"

"I think we'll have to give him a character, Georgie. He's an old
friend; used to practice law here--perhaps he had more debts than cases,
but he paid 'em all up before he left town. Your question is purely
mercenary, I take it: you want to know his true worth before proceeding
further with the daughter. I cannot inform you, though I notice signs
of considerable prosperity in that becoming dress of hers. However, you
never can tell, it is an age when every sacrifice is