In spite of the lady's kindness they all stood in awe of her, as the daughter of a Great Man, whose orations were printed in their school readers beside those of Webster and Clay. Miss Theodora, with her quiet manner and high forehead, in a day when all other women wore more elaborate coiffures, seemed to the children like a person in a book, and their answers to her questions were always the merest monosyllables. It was not worldliness altogether which took Ernest away from his former playmates. After his mornings with Ralph and their tutor, he had to study pretty hard in the afternoon. His evenings were generally devoted to Miss Theodora; either he read aloud while she sewed, or they played chess with that curious set of carved chessmen given her father by a grateful Salem client years before. In little ways, Miss Theodora, though not a sharp observer, sometimes thought that she detected a growing worldliness in Ernest. "Why don't we get some new carpets?" he asked one day. It was the very spring before he entered college. "I never could tell, Aunt Teddy, what those flowers were meant to be. When I was a little chap, I used to wonder whether they were bunches of roses or dahlias; but now you'd hardly know they were meant to be flowers at all." This was true enough, for the carpet, with its huge pattern, designed for the drawing room of their old house, had been trodden upon by so many feet that now hardly the faint outline of its former roses remained. The furniture, too, was growing shabby; the heavy green rep of the easy chairs had faded in spots, the gilded picture frames were tarnished, and the window draperies, with their imposing lambrequins, were sadly out of fashion. Yet from Miss Theodora's evasive reply the boy did not realize that poverty prevented her refurnishing the rooms in modern fashion. He had everything he needed; but the circle of relatives all continued to say, "It's wonderful that Theodora manages as well as she does." [Illustration] VI. "Come along! Hurry up!" called Ernest to Ben, one winter's day, kicking his heels into the little hillocks of frozen snow on the sidewalk; and even as he spoke Ben, with a "Here I am," rushed from the house with his skates slung over his shoulder. Ernest carried in a green bag, on which his aunt had worked his initials in shaded brown, a pair of the famous "Climax" club skates, a present from his cousin, Richard Somerset. Reaching the Common, after a brisk run, they began to put on their skates. The cold day had apparently kept many of the younger boys and girls away, and although there was room enough for all the skaters, not a few of them were objectionably rough and boisterous. Near the spot where Ernest and Ben were, among a small group of well-dressed lads, swinging stick or playing hockey, Ernest was sorry to recognize Ralph Digby. "I wouldn't have come if I'd known Ralph would be here," he said regretfully to Ben.