"The Portrait of a Lady," by Henry James, is a novel of being educated abroad. The novel's interior style forces readers to closely consider why they travel, what and whom they might encounter, and how they want to live their lives. Reading "The Portrait of a Lady" as a tale of two travelers allows it to remain the quintessential study abroad novel. This article describes how the author--a teacher at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota--used "The Portrait of a Lady" as the foundation of a senior seminar project. Students were asked to track responses to the character of their choice in the novel as part of the assignment. Students' responses to the assignment caused the teacher to shift her perspective of the novel from a single-person study of the main character, Isabel, to a comparative portrait of learners abroad. This article provides a summary of the novel, as well as insight into why students had an unexpected response to what was initially a predictable assignment.