at Hatboro', where he spent his time when he was
not at his house in Boston; and when they verified the fact of his
immense prosperity by inquiry of some of the summer-folks who knew him
or knew about him, they were obscurely flattered by the fact; just as
many of us are proud of belonging to a nation in which we are enriched
by the fellow-citizenship of many manifold millionnaires. They did not
blame Northwick for never coming to see his father, or for never having
him home on a visit; they daily saw what old Northwick was, and how
little he was fitted for the society of a man whose respectability, even
as it was reflected upon them, was so dazzling. Old Northwick had never
done anything for Milt; he had never even got along with him; the fellow
had left him, and made his own way; and the old man had no right to
talk; if Milt was ever of a mind to cut off his rations, the old man
would soon see.

III.

The local opinion scarcely did justice to old Northwick's imperfect
discharge of a father's duties; his critics could not have realized how
much some capacities, if not tastes, which Northwick had inherited,
contributed to that very effect of respectability which they revered.
The early range of books, the familiarity with the mere exterior of
literature, restricted as it was, helped Northwick later to pass for a
man of education, if not of reading, with men who were themselves less
read than educated. The people whom his ability threw him with in Boston
were all Harvard men, and they could not well conceive of an
acquaintance, so gentlemanly and quiet as Northwick, who was not college
bred, too. By unmistakable signs, which we carry through life, they knew
he was from the country, and they attributed him to a freshwater
college. They said, "You're a Dartmouth man, Northwick, I believe," or,
"I think you're from Williams," and when Northwick said no, they forgot
it, and thought that he was a Bowdoin man; the impression gradually
fixed itself that he was from one or other of those colleges. It was
believed in like manner, partly on account of his name, that he was from
one of those old ministerial families that you find up in the hills,
where the whole brood study Greek while they are sugaring off in the
spring; and that his own mother had fitted him for college. There was,
in fact, something clerical in Northwick's bearing; and it was felt by
some that he had studied for the ministry, but had gone into business