She was short and solid, and her
claim to figure was questioned, but she was conceded presence,
though not majesty; she had moreover, as people said, improved since
her marriage, and the two things in life of which she was most
distinctly conscious were her husband's force in argument and her
sister Isabel's originality. "I've never kept up with Isabel- it would
have taken all my time," she had often remarked; in spite of which,
however, she held her rather wistfully in sight; watching her as a
motherly spaniel might watch a free greyhound. "I want to see her
safely married- that's what I want to see," she frequently noted to
her husband.
"Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry
her," Edmund Ludlow was accustomed to answer in an extremely audible
tone.
"I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite
ground. I don't see what you've against her except that she's so
original."
"Well, I don't like originals; I like translations," Mr. Ludlow
had more than once replied. "Isabel's written in a foreign tongue. I
can't make her out. She ought to marry an Armenian or a Portuguese."
"That's just what I'm afraid she'll do!" cried Lilian, who thought
Isabel capable of anything.
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