last 'most all
night. You know what a tremendous physique all the Gridley men have had.
Well, Uncle Grid turned into work all the energy the rest of them spent in
deviltry. Aunt Amelia said he'd go on like that day after day for a month,
and then he'd bring out one of those essays folks are so crazy about. She
said she never could bear to _look_ at his books ... seemed to her they
were written in his blood. She told him so once and he said it was the
only thing to do with blood like his."

He was silent, while his listener made a clucking noise of astonishment.
"My! My! I'd have said that there never was anybody more different from
grandfather than uncle. Why, as he got on in years he didn't even look
like him any more."

This reference gave Stephen a start. "Oh, yes, that's what all this came
out for. Aunt Amelia is just wild about this portrait. It's just a notion
of hers, of course, but after what she told me I could see, easy, how the
idea would come to her. It looks this way, she says, as though Uncle Grid
inherited his father's physical make-up complete, and spent all his life
fighting it ... and won out! And here's this picture making him look the
way he would if he'd been the worst old ... as if he'd been like the
Governor. She says she feels as though she was the only one to defend
uncle ... as if it could make any difference to him! I guess the poor old
lady is a little touched. Likely it's harder for her, losing uncle, than
we realized. She just about worshiped him. Queer business, anyhow, wasn't
it? Who'd ha' thought he was like that?"

He had talked his unwonted emotion quite out, and now looked at his
brother with his usual matter-of-fact eye. "Did you tell the station agent
to hold the trunk?"

The other, who was the younger, looked a little abashed. "Well, no; I
found the train was so late I thought maybe we could ... you know there's
that business to-morrow ...!"

His senior relieved him of embarrassment. "That's a good idea. Sure we
can. There's nothing we could do if we stayed. It's just a notion of Aunt
'Melia's, anyhow. I agree with her that it don't look so awfully like
Uncle Grid, but, then, oil-portraits are never any good. Give me a
photograph!"

"It's out of our line, anyhow," agreed the younger, looking at his watch.

III

The president of Middletown College had been as much relieved as pleased
by the success of the rather pretentious celebration he had planned. His
annoyance