"She couldn't love Wilbur, could she?" Mrs. Foster demanded, with no
challengers. "Well, it will all go to her children, and she'll ruin
'em!"

The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely: except
for that, her foresight was accurate. The wedding was of Ambersonian
magnificence, even to the floating oysters; and the Major's colossal
present was a set of architect's designs for a house almost as
elaborate and impressive as the Mansion, the house to be built in
Amberson Addition by the Major. The orchestra was certainly not that
local one which had suffered the loss of a bass viol; the musicians
came, according to the prophecy and next morning's paper, from afar;
and at midnight the bride was still being toasted in champagne, though
she had departed upon her wedding journey at ten. Four days later the
pair had returned to town, which promptness seemed fairly to
demonstrate that Wilbur had indeed taken Isabel upon the carefulest
little trip he could manage. According to every report, she was from
the start "a good wife to him," but here in a final detail the
prophecy proved inaccurate. Wilbur and Isabel did not have children;
they had only one.

"Only one," Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster admitted. "But I'd like to
know if he isn't spoiled enough for a whole carload!"

Again she found none to challenge her.

At the age of nine, George Amberson Minafer, the Major's one
grandchild, was a princely terror, dreaded not only in Amberson
Addition but in many other quarters through which he galloped on his