climates dries with the bloom on. Her features had remained prettily
childlike; so had her figure, and there were times when strangers,
seeing her across the street, took her to be about twenty; they were
other times when at the same distance they took her to be about sixty,
instead of forty, as she was. She had old days and young days; old
hours and young hours; old minutes and young minutes; for the change
might be that quick. An alteration in her expression, or a difference
in the attitude of her head, would cause astonishing indentations to
appear--and behold, Fanny was an old lady! But she had been never
more childlike than she was tonight as she flew over the floor in the
capable arms of the queer-looking duck; for this person was her
partner.

The queer-looking duck had been a real dancer in his day, it appeared;
and evidently his day was not yet over. In spite of the headlong, gay
rapidity with which he bore Miss Fanny about the big room, he danced
authoritatively, avoiding without effort the lightest collision with
other couples, maintaining sufficient grace throughout his wildest
moments, and all the while laughing and talking with his partner.
What was most remarkable to George, and a little irritating, this
stranger in the Amberson Mansion had no vestige of the air of
deference proper to a stranger in such a place: he seemed thoroughly
at home. He seemed offensively so, indeed, when, passing the entrance
to the gallery stairway, he disengaged his hand from Miss Fanny's for
an instant, and not pausing in the dance, waved a laughing salutation
more than cordial, then capered lightly out of sight.

George gazed stonily at this manifestation, responding neither by word
nor sign. "How's that for a bit of freshness?" he murmured.