He thought of Lucy, whom he had seen only twice, and he could not help feeling that in these quiet interviews he had appeared to her as tinged with heroism--she had shown, rather than said, how brave she thought him in his sorrow.

But what came most vividly to George's mind, during these retrospections, was the despairing face of his Aunt Fanny.

Again and again he thought of it; he could not avoid its haunting.

And for days, after he got back to college, the stricken likeness of Fanny would appear before him unexpectedly, and without a cause that he could trace in his immediately previous thoughts.

Her grief had been so silent, yet it had so amazed him.
George felt more and more compassion for this ancient antagonist of his, and he wrote to his mother about her: I'm afraid poor Aunt Fanny might think now father's gone we won't want her to live with us any longer and because I always teased her so much she might think I'd be for turning her out.