Later, when the journeys to
Europe ceased, he still had shown his children all sorts of
indulgence, and if he had been troubled about money-matters nothing
ever disturbed their irreflective consciousness of many possessions.
Isabel, though she danced very well, had not the recollection of
having been in New York a successful member of the choregraphic
circle; her sister Edith was, as every one said, so very much more
fetching. Edith was so striking an example of success that Isabel
could have no illusions as to what constituted this advantage, or as
to the limits of her own power to frisk and jump and shriek- above all
with rightness of effect. Nineteen persons out of twenty (including
the younger sister herself pronounced Edith infinitely the prettier of
the two; but the twentieth, besides reversing this judgement, had
the entertainment of thinking all the others aesthetic vulgarians.
Isabel had in the depths of her nature an even more unquenchable
desire to please than Edith; but the depths of this young lady's
nature were a very out-of-the-way place, between which and the surface
communication was interrupted by a dozen capricious forces.
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