cing? With inward angry determination,
he immediately asked her to dance again. But he need not have feared
interference; Heathcote did not enter the room during the evening.

From the moment Miss Vanhorn heard the story of that day her method
regarding her niece changed entirely; for Mr. Heathcote would never have
remained with her, storm or no storm, through four or five hours, unless
he either admired her, had been entertained by her, or liked her for
herself alone, as men will like occasionally a frank, natural young
girl.

According to old Katharine, Anne was not beautiful enough to excite his
admiration, not amusing enough to entertain him; it must be, therefore,
that he liked her to a certain degree for herself alone. Mr. Heathcote
was not a favorite of old Katharine's, yet none the less was his
approval worth having, and none the less, also, was he an excellent
subject to rouse the jealousy of Gregory Dexter. For Dexter was not
coming forward as rapidly as old Katharine had decreed he should come.
Old Katharine had decided that Anne was to marry Dexter; but if in the
mean time her girlish fancy was attracted toward Heathcote, so much the
better. It would all the more surely eliminate the memory of that fatal
name, Pronando. Of course Heathcote was only amusing himself, but he
must now be encouraged to continue to amuse himself. She ceased taking
Anne to the woods every day; she made her sit among the groups of ladies
on the piazza in the morning, with worsted, canvas, and a pattern, which
puzzled poor Anne deeply, since she had not the gift of fancy-work, nor
a talent for tidies. She asked Heathcote to teach her niece to play
billiards, and she sent her to stroll on the river-bank at sunset with
him under a white silk parasol. At the same time, however, she continued
to summon Mr. Dexter to her side with the same dictatorial manner she
had assumed toward him from the first, and to talk to him, and encourage
him to talk to her through long half-hours of afternoon and evening. The
old woman, with her airs of patronage, her half-closed eyes, and frank
impertinence, amused him more than any one at Caryl's. With his own
wide, far-reaching plans and cares and enterprises all the time pushing
each other forward in his mind, it was like coming from a world of
giants to one of Lilliputians to sit down and talk with limited,
prejudiced, narrow old Katharine. She knew that he was amused; she was
even capable of understand