'Not about business, sir.'

'And it is business, I suppose, that has brought you here,--and to
Cambridge. I do not know what little things you have of your own in the
house.'

'Not much, sir.'

'If there be anything that you wish to take, take it. But with you now,
I suppose, money is the only possession that has any value.'

'I should like to have the small portrait of you,--the miniature.'

'The miniature of me,' said the father, almost scoffingly, looking up at
his son's face, suspiciously. And yet, though he would not show it, he
was touched. Only if this were a ruse on the part of the young man, a
mock sentiment, a little got-up theatrical pretence,--then,--then how
disgraced he would be in his own estimation at having been moved by such
mockery!

The son stood square before his father, disdaining any attempt to evince
a supplicating tenderness either by his voice or by his features. 'But,
perhaps, you have a special value for it,' he said.

'No, indeed. It is others, not oneself, that ought to have such
trifles,--that is, if they are of value at all.'

'There is none but myself that can care much for it.'