e had decided that Anne was to marry Dexter; but if in the mean time her girlish fancy was attracted toward
Heathcote, so much the better. It would all the more surely eliminate the memory of that fatal name, Pronando. Of course
Heathcote was only amusing himself, but he must now be encouraged to continue to amuse himself. She ceased taking Anne to the
woods every day; she made her sit among the groups of ladies on the piazza in the morning, with worsted, canvas, and a
pattern, which puzzled poor Anne deeply, since she had not the gift of fancy-work, nor a talent for tidies. She asked
Heathcote to teach her niece to play billiards, and she sent her to stroll on the river-bank at sunset with him under a white
silk parasol. At the same time, however, she continued to summon Mr. Dexter to her side with the same dictatorial manner she
had assumed toward him from the first, and to talk to him, and encourage him to talk to her through long half-hours of
afternoon and evening. The old woman, with her airs of patronage, her half-closed eyes, and frank impertinence, amused him
more than any one at Caryl’s. With his own wide, far-reaching plans and cares and enterprises all the time pushing each other
forward in his mind, it was like coming from a world of giants to one of Lilliputians to sit down and talk with limited,
prejudiced, narrow old Katharine. She knew that he was amused; she was even capable of understanding it, viewed from his own
stand-po