Ernestine's father was a professor of biology and believed that everything could be reduced to a formula. Her mother was a dreamer, a "lover of things beautiful, a hater of all she flet to be at war with her gods." Her mother was unhappy. Her parents did not get along. Her father died when she was in her senior year. Ernestine quit her art studies in New York to take care of her mother during her last days. Her cousin Georgia McCormick (a journalist) introuces her to Karl Huber, a scientist. They marry. One of Ernestine's possesions was Mercie"s Gloria Victisa bronze. She considered it "the glory of the conquered" p. 48 p.50"But don't you see? The keynote of it is that stubborn grip on the broken sword. I should think every fighter would love it for that. And it is morethan the glory of the good fight. It is the glory of the unconquerable will. Look at the woman's face! The world calls him beaten. She knows that he has won . . . " Anyway, Karl goes blind and she works in the laboratory to learn to become his eyes. ( )