Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and
wonderments not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had
joined her found further chagrin in his failure to throw himself
into these speculations. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund
Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or
distressed, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law
might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow's mental motions
were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so
natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New
York- the Rossiters', for instance, which had an elegant
conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at another
she couldn't conceal her surprise at the girl's not marrying some
member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have
said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She
had taken more satisfaction in Isabel's accession of fortune than if
the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just
the proper setting for her sister's slightly meagre, but scarce the
less eminent figure.
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