"Now, Ernest, I don't know what Theodora would do if she knew that I had
told you, but since you insist I will say that your father left you
nothing, absolutely nothing. He invested his small share of your
grandfather's property badly, and when we came to settle things there
wasn't a cent for you." So said Richard Somerset in the interview which
Ernest soon sought.
"So all that I have is just that much less for Aunt Teddy?"
"Yes,--if you put it that way. But she has told me many a time that
whatever she has is yours. Just you do your best at college, and become
a clever lawyer like your father and your grandfather, and she'll be
satisfied. You see, you are all she has in the world. Of course, if she
had married,--" but here the good man grew silent, and Ernest never
heard from him the story of Miss Theodora's one love affair.
It was just as well that he stopped where he did, for, with an
indiscretion worthy a younger man, he had already gone far beyond Miss
Theodora's instructions. He knew that it was her one desire that Ernest
should not learn that he had no money of his own. When Ernest had heard
the truth, much that previously he had not quite understood in his
aunt's management of affairs was explained.
"It's all very well to talk about being a lawyer," he cried. "It's all
very well to talk; but I have found out that I cannot possibly be one.
It's been worrying me lately. Of course, I might go through college in a
sort of way; but after what you tell me I can't see the sense in wasting
time or money."
Richard Somerset looked aghast. Was this the effect of his words? What
would Miss Theodora say?
"Why--why, you wouldn't disappoint your aunt like that, would you? What
in the world would you do if you left college?"
"Well, I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure that I'd take a course
like Ben Bruce has had at the Technology. Then I'd go West and make some
money. One thing I've found out since I went to College,--and that is
that I don't want to be poor the rest of my life."
"Everybody who goes West doesn't make money."
"Maybe not, but I met a man crossing on the Altruria this summer, who
told me that mining engineers have the best possible chance now. He's a
large stockholder in the 'Wampum and Etna,' and he said if only my
profession were something in his line he could do a lot for me."
"Rather presuming for a stranger," said Richard Somerset, with the true
Boston manner.
"He didn't seem like a stranger. He used to know my father, I believe.
But he said it wasn't worth while to mention him to Aunt Theodora, as
she probably wouldn't remember him."
"What was his name?"
"Easton--William Easton. I have his card and address somewhere. He used
to be an army officer, captain of engineers, then he resigned and went
into mining. He worked like everything until he made a lucky find. He
was his own engineer for a time, but now he's given up active work. He
and his wife go abroad every summer."
"No, it wasn't worth while to mention him to your aunt," said Richard
Somerset, as Ernest left him. The older man gazed abstractedly after the
boy, while his heart went out in sympathy with Miss Theodora.
Between Miss Theodora and William Easton there had once been an
engagement, known only to their most intimate friends. John's classmate
and comrade in the war, he had never concealed his admiration for John's
sister. It was just after Dorothy's death, when Ernest demanded all Miss
Theodora's time, that William Easton was ordered to the western
frontier. With the reorganization of the army he had gone into the
Engineers, and now there was no chance, had he wished, to evade the duty
to which he was assigned. He might stay at his new post four or five
years, he said, and Theodora must marry him and go too. Always
imperative, he tried hard enough to carry his point. But for Ernest's
claims Miss Theodora would have yielded.
"Ernest will come, too, of course," he said,--and failed, obstinately
perhaps, to see the weight of Miss Theodora's objections. The locality
to which he was bound was notoriously unhealthy. The surroundings would
be in other respects unfavorable to the little boy,--and what chance
would he have for an education in that remote and half-civilized region?
Nor would Miss Theodora leave the child behind, even had there been any
one with whom she could leave him. Surely she and William could wait.
But William Easton, always impatient, went off to his distant post angry
that Theodora should prefer a little child to him. Both were heart-sore
at first, but time works wonders, and years after this parting, when
Miss Theodora heard that he had married the daughter of a Colorado
rancher, she hoped, yes, she really hoped, that he was happy.
Ernest did not recognize as William Easton, his steamboat acquaintance,
the young officer who stood beside his father in the little faded
photograph on his aunt's dressing table. "What queer, loose-fitting
uniforms they had! We'd smile if men wore their hair so long as that
now." This was all the boy had thought, as he looked at the picture. But
for Miss Theodora these two faded figures symbolized her heart's whole
history.
To keep Ernest from thinking much about money matters, Miss Theodora had
discouraged intimacies with her richer distant relatives--excepting only
the Digbys. This one exception in the case of the Digbys needed no
justification in her mind. Had not Stuart been John's best friend? Thus
Ernest, growing up in the simple West End neighborhood, had little
opportunity to make uncomfortable contrasts between his aunt's way of
living and that of richer people. Had Ralph and Ernest been more
congenial, Ernest might have been drawn into Ralph's set, made up of the
boys of his own age with the largest claims on the so-called society of
Boston. As it had been, Ralph and his friends formed a little world
apart from Ernest and his interests. With Ben as full confidant and
adviser, Ernest was naturally well content with his own lot. For Ben,
with so much less than Ernest had of the things that money gives, was
always happy--apparently happy and absorbed in his studies. Ernest knew
of course that he himself must be economical,--his aunt had often said
so; but sometimes he thought that this economy was only one of her
fancies,--she was so unlike other people in many ways. Especially
probable did this seem when she gave him a liberal allowance for
Harvard. He did not know, until Richard Somerset told him, that a bank
failure a few years before had taken five thousand dollars of Miss
Theodora's small capital, and that a mortgage of almost the same amount
had been put on the house to enable her to carry out her plans for
Ernest.
But Ernest's happy ignorance was now at an end. If his summer in Europe,
his year in college, had done nothing else for him, these things had
given him a desire for a larger life than he had had. Unless they take
form in action desires of this kind may end in mere discontent, to eat
into the heart of their possessor. Rightly directed, they will carry him
along a path at the end of which, even if unsuccessful, he will at least
have pleasure in remembering that he tried to reach a definite goal.
Thus Ernest, disturbed by the fact that his college course was less
satisfactory to him than he had expected it to be, confronted by the
knowledge that money, or lack of money, plays a large part in every-day
affairs, overwhelmed by his discovery of the meagreness of his aunt's
possessions, still hesitated a little as to his own duty.
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