Report books

"It's charming, isn't it!" she said, moving her black-gloved hand to
indicate the summery dressed crowd strolling about them, or clustering
in groups, each with its own hero. "They seem so eager and so
confident, all these boys--it's touching. But of course youth doesn't
know it's touching."
Amberson coughed. "No, it doesn't seem to take itself as pathetic,
precisely! Eugene and I were just speaking of something like that.
Do you know what I think whenever I see these smooth, triumphal young
faces? I always think: 'Oh, how you're going to catch it'!"
"George!"
"Oh, yes," he said. "Life's most ingenious: it's got a special
walloping for every mother's son of 'em!"
"Maybe," said Isabel, troubled--"maybe some of the mothers can take
the walloping for them."
"Not one!" her brother assured her, with emphasis. "Not any more than
she can take on her own face the lines that are bound to come on her
son's. I suppose you know that all these young faces have got to get
lines on 'em?"
"Maybe they won't," she said, smiling wistfully.


Pages:
201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225