Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/292

 which he had determined to remove, by brute force, if need be, before he would take another step. The boy was totally dependent upon his father, and he was resolved never to ask Julie to be his wife until he was in a fair way to earn a living.

Mr. Spencer was the rich man of the pretty suburban town where he lived. He had made money in the iron business when that branch of commerce was most flourishing, and had retired from active life before the precipitous decline in the iron interest which had wrecked so many fortunes.

He was now comfortably occupied with the care of various trust properties. He was a bank director and president of the local horse-railway, and he held other offices of dignity and responsibility which were gratifying to his pride.

He was not himself a college-bred man, yet he had a comfortable sense of equality in his intercourse with those of his fellow-townsmen who had enjoyed the advantage of a fleeting familiarity with the dead languages, and he had left his sons free to accept or reject such advantages, as they should prefer.

Ben, the eldest, had graduated with honors, and "gone in" for law; John was established in business in the city, whither he repaired daily in the pursuit of fortune; while Dick, after a year's trial at college, had fallen into an impatience of books, and announced himself ready for practical life.