"Well, I think that you could get into the treasurer's office of the Nashawapag Mills. Richard Somerset has great influence there."
"Now, Aunt Teddy, you wouldn't want me to be a book-keeper the rest of my life,—for that is all I'd be; and as for salary, unless I stayed there thirty or forty years, until those at the top died, I suppose that I could make a little more than a bare living, but it wouldn't be much more."
Then Miss Theodora, who could think of very few occupations outside of the learned professions in which a young man of good family might properly engage, at last surrendered to Ernest's arguments.
"We have so very little money," said Ernest, after he had let her know that Richard Somerset had told him how slight their resources were; "we are so poor, that in a few years I know that I would have to beg or borrow, and I'm sure you would not wish me to do one any more than the other."
"No, indeed," exclaimed his aunt.
"You see," he went on, "I am acquiring very extravagant tastes at Cambridge. There's no place like it for making you want money, if you once begin to contrast yourself with fellows who have plenty."
"But I thought you were independent," sighed poor Miss Theodora.
"Oh, I should be if I were really interested in my work," replied Ernest; "but, you see, I can't throw myself into my studies as I ought to."
It is to be feared that Ernest was worse than a little artful in thus painting himself as black as he could. He did not tell his aunt, what really was the truth, that it was harder for him to give up Harvard now than it would have been six months before. He had begun to have his own group of special friends; he had begun to enjoy many phases of college life. Despite certain distasteful studies, he might have gone through college without special discredit. He might have taken his degree, as many of his classmates would, with considerable culture and very little practical knowledge clinging to him. He trembled when he saw that he could take so kindly to dawdling ways. But his Puritan conscience interposed. When he knew how really poor they were, his love for his aunt and his pride all imparted to him a firmness at which he himself marvelled.