In fact, he secretly was proud of his talents and his scholarship, and had set his heart on his going through college, and had no more serious purpose in what he said the day before than the general one of making his son feel the difficulties and straits he was put to for him.

Young men were tempted at college to be too expensive, he thought, and to forget what it cost their parents at home.

In short, the whole thing had been merely the passing off of a paroxysm of hypochondria, and he had already begun to be satisfied that he should raise his interest money that year without material difficulty.

The letter showed him too keenly the depth of the suffering he had inflicted on his son, and when he had read it he cast a sort of helpless, questioning look on his wife, and said, after an interval of silence: "Well, mother!" There was something quite pathetic in the appealing look and voice.' "Well, father," she answered in subdued tones; "all we can do now is to _leave_ it." LEAVE IT! Those were words often in that woman's mouth, and they expressed that habit of her life which made her victorious over all troubles, that habit of trust in the Infinite Will that actually could and did _leave_ every accomplished event in His hand, without murmur and without conflict.
If there was any one thing in her uniformly self-denied life that had been a personal ambition and a personal desire, it had been that her son should have a college education.

It was the center of her earthly wishes, hopes and efforts.