"Perhaps it won't be with honor in my case, Aunt Teddy. Remember my Greek."
Miss Theodora smiled. "I have tried to forget it." Then as Ernest leaned down to kiss her, "No, no. I can't be coaxed into saying what I don't think. Of course you will go to Harvard and be an honor to your family."
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."