Harvard takes the nonsense out of a
man. I can't enter into what you say, and it isn't my affair; but in
regard to influence at Harvard, it depends upon the set Jeff is thrown
with or throws himself with. So, at least, I infer from what I've heard
my friend say of his son there. There are hard-working sets, loafing
sets, and fast sets; and I suppose it isn't different at Harvard in such
matters from other colleges."

Mrs. Durgin looked a little grave. "Of course," she said, "we don't know
anybody at Cambridge, except some ladies that boarded with us one summer,
and I shouldn't want to ask any favor of them. The trouble would be to
get Jeff started right."

Westover surmised a good many things, but in the absence of any
confidences from the Durgins he could not tell just how much Jackson
meant in saying that Jeff was pretty much spoiled, or how little. At
first, from Mrs. Durgin's prompt protest, he fancied that Jackson meant
that the boy had been over-indulged by his mother: "I understand," he
said, in default of something else to say, "that the requirements at
Harvard are pretty severe."

"He's passed his preliminary examinations," said Jackson, with a touch of
hauteur, "and I guess he can enter this fall if we should so decide.
He'll have some conditions, prob'ly, but none but what he can work off, I
guess."

"Then, if you wish to have him go to college, by all means let him go to
Harvard, I should say. It's our great university and our oldest. I'm not
a college man myself; but, if I were, I should wish to have been a
Harvard man. If Jeff has any nonsense in him, it will take it out; and I
don't believe there's anything in Harvard, as Harvard, to make him
worse."

"That's what we both think," said Jackson.

"I've heard," Westover continued, and he rose and stood while he spoke,
"that Harvard's like the world. A man gets on there on the same terms
that he gets on in the world. He has to be a man, and he'd better be a
gentleman."

Mrs. Durgin still looked serious. "Have you come back to Boston for good
now? Do you expect to be there right along?"

"I've taken a studio there. Yes, I expect to be in Boston now. I've taken
to teaching, and I fancy I can make a living. If Jeff comes to Cambridge,
and I can be of any use--"

"We should be ever so much obliged to you," said his mother, with an air
of great relief.

"Not at all. I shall be very glad. Your mountain air is drugging me, Mrs.
Durgin. I shall have to