"
"The trouble is, I _can't_ earn anything in college," objected Gilbert,
"though I'd like to."
"That will be the only way a college course can come to you now,
Gilbert," his mother said quietly. "You know nothing of the expenses
involved. They would have taxed our resources to the utmost if father
had lived, and we had had our more than five thousand a year! You and I
together must think out your problem this summer."
Gilbert looked blank and walked to the window with his hands in his
pockets.
"I should lose all my friends, and it's hard for a fellow to make his
way in the world if he has nothing to recommend him but his graduation
from some God-forsaken little hole like Beulah Academy."
Nancy looked as if she could scalp her brother when he alluded to her
beloved village in these terms, but her mother's warning look stopped
any comment.
Julia took up arms for her cousin. "We ought to go without everything
for the sake of sending Gilbert to college," she said. "Gladys Ferguson
doesn't know a single boy who isn't going to Harvard or Yale."
"If a boy of good family and good breeding cannot make friends by his
own personality and his own qualities of mind and character, I should
think he would better go without them," said Gilbert's mother casually.
"Don't you believe in a college education, mother?" inquired Gilbert in
an astonished tone.
"Certainly! Why else should we have made sacrifices to send you? To
begin with, it is much simpler and easier to be educated in college.
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