carry with it authority, but he curtly refused, saying that he had no
taste for a desk and pen like Peter. Peter was his brother, who had
begun dutifully at an early age his life-long task of taking care of the
large accumulation of land which makes the family so rich. Peter was the
good boy always. Father Peter was naturally angry with John, and
inclined even then to cross his name off the family list of heirs; this,
however, was not really done until the prodigal crowned his long course
of misdeeds by marrying the pretty daughter of a Scotchman, who held one
of the smaller clerkships in the Company's warehouses here--only a grade
above the hunters themselves. This was the end. Almost anything else
might have been forgiven save a marriage of that kind. If John Pronando
had selected the daughter of a flat-boat man on the Ohio River, or of a
Pennsylvania mountain wagoner, they might have accepted her--at a
distance--and made the best of her. But a person from the rank and file
of their own Fur Company--it was as though a colonel should marry the
daughter of a common soldier in his own regiment: yes, worse, for
nothing can equal the Pronando pride. From that day John Pronando was
simply forgotten--so they said. His mother was dead, so it may have been
true. A small sum was settled upon him, and a will was carefully drawn
up forever excluding him and the heirs he might have from any share in
the estate. John did not appear to mind this, but lived on merrily
enough for some years afterward, until his sweet little wife died; then
he seemed to lose his strength suddenly, and soon followed her, leaving
this one boy, Erastus, named after the maternal grandfather, with his
usual careless disregard of what would be for his advantage. The boy has
been brought up by our good chaplain, although he lives with a family
down in the village; the doctor has husbanded what money there was
carefully, and there is enough to send him through college, and to start
him in life in some way. A good education he considered the best
investment of all."

"In a fresh-water college?" said Mrs. Cromer, raising her eyebrows.

"Why not, for a fresh-water boy? He will always live in the West."

"He is so handsome," said Mrs. Rankin, "that he might go Eastward,
captivate his relatives, and win his way back into the family again."

"He does not know anything about his family," said the colonel's wife.

"Then some one ought to tell him."

"Why? Simpl