He loved his aunt; he wished to please her; but, oh, if he could only beg off from college! If he could only follow Ben to his scientific school! Ben, no one could deny it, would be a great man, and Ben had not gone to Harvard. Ben and Ralph in contrast presented themselves to Ernest's mind as his aunt spoke of the "honor of the family." Changing his lounging position, he stood in an attitude of direct interrogation before Miss Theodora. "Now, Aunt Teddy, which is going to be a great man, Ben or Ralph?" "I am no prophet, Ernest." "Oh, well, you know what I mean. Would you rather have me grow up like Ben or like Ralph?" "I am fond of Ben." "Yes, and you don't like Ralph a bit better than I do. He can write Greek exercises that are nearly perfect,--and Ben don't know Alpha from Omega." "You seem to believe that Ben's good qualities result from his ignorance of Greek, and Ralph's from his knowledge of the classics." "I am not so silly as that, Aunt Teddy. But Ralph won't be a great honor to the family even if he should go through Harvard twenty times, and I wouldn't be a disgrace to you even if I didn't know Greek, or law, or any of those things." As Ernest seldom spoke so bitterly on this subject, Miss Theodora wisely avoided further discussion by turning to her writing-table. "I have a letter to finish now, Ernest; why do you not go down to your workroom? Kate is anxious for the table you promised her." Ernest went off to his work, while Miss Theodora, still sitting before the fire thinking lovingly of the boy, pictured him in the not remote future a worthy wearer of the legal honor of the family. When Miss Theodora said "family," she thought most often of a long line of Massachusetts ancestors of dignified demeanor and studious expression, all resembling in general features the portrait of her grandfather hanging on the library wall. This portrait her own father had had enlarged from a poorly executed miniature. Perhaps it was the painter's fault that the nose had an air of intellectuality--even more exaggerated than that of the high forehead. Ernest as a little boy was so frightened by this portrait that he did not like to be left alone in the room with it.