When he and John were at school he had intended to study medicine, for his scientific tastes were as decided as John's bent for the law. But he had yielded all too weakly to his love for the prettiest girl in his set, and an heiress, too. By the death of his father and mother he had already come into possession of his own large fortune. When these two independent and rich young people were married, therefore, a month after he was graduated from Harvard, it was hardly strange that Stuart put aside his medical course until he should have made the tour of Europe. Then, when once domiciled in their own hotel in Paris, what wonder that they let all thoughts of Boston disappear in the background? Just before the war what could the United States offer pleasure-seekers comparable with the delights of Paris under the Second Empire? They stayed in Europe until the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, and managed to leave Paris just before the siege. Not only the upsetting of things in France, but a crisis in Stuart Digby's business affairs, hastened him home at last. Besides, he felt a little remorse about his children. He did not wish them to grow up thorough Parisians; already, young as they were, they began to show symptoms of regarding France as their country rather than America. Disregarding, therefore, his wife's remonstrances, he broke up their Paris establishment, despatched his foreign furniture and bric-a-brac to Boston, and, following soon afterward with his family, bought a house in the new part of Beacon Street, a region which, when he went to Europe, had been submerged in water. Though some people fancied that Stuart Digby could afford whatever he wished, he himself thought otherwise. After his return to Boston he found that there had been a shrinkage both in his own and his wife's income. There was little danger that they or their children should ever want, and yet the fact that they had a few thousands a year less than they had expected bred in them an unwonted spirit of economy. This spirit of economy showed itself chiefly in their dealings with other people. Stuart, for example, had always intended to settle a sum of money on Miss Theodora and Ernest, but now he decided to wait. He would help the boy somewhat in his education, and he would remember him in his will.