Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/45

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this time on Harold was much too well-dressed for his environment. When, at last, the boy went to college, he had only come in contact with his Aunt Sadi, Persia Blaine, and the other servants, a few female guests, Elliot Sanderson, his two solemn tutors, and his tailor. It is not astonishing, therefore, that his college years were somewhat of a trial. If Sanderson had sent him to one of the big universities, Yale or Harvard or Princeton, it is possible that the lad might have rubbed up against somebody sufficiently sympathetic or altruistic or merely meddlesome to teach him something of the world. The lawyer, however, uncertain how long his rich client's animosity towards his offspring might continue, thought it wise to seclude the boy in a small and rather poor sectarian college where he would scarcely be likely to meet any one who could establish communication or connections with the outside world. In this respect Sanderson's foresight was splendidly justified.

The boy's obviously superior style of dressing, his diffident manner, his rather obstinate pride, natural enough, considering the circumstances of his bringing-up, almost completely isolated him during his freshman year. He attended his classes and studied. Afternoons, he sometimes went horseback riding. He lived in a poor professor's house where there were no other boys. In his sophomore year he made a friend or two, because in any community, however small, complete isolation