punished for that matter of the money and Mr.
Palmer. I don't give up that intention; I shall only postpone carrying
it out, during your good behaviour."

"Thank you, sir; I dare say it's better than I deserve."

And so was Mr. Ned established home again, to be provided for by his
father until he should obtain some means of self-support. In this task
his father offered no assistance, being cautious against vouching for
a person hitherto so untrustworthy; and it soon became evident that
Ned was not very vigorously prosecuting the task himself. He had the
excuse that it was a bad time for the purpose, the country being so
unsettled in the expectation of continued war. And he was content to
remain an idle charge upon his father's bounty, a somewhat neglected
inmate of the house, his comings and goings not watched or inquired
into. His father rarely had a word for him but of curt and formal
greeting. His mother found little more to say to him, and that in a
shy reserved manner. Margaret gave him no speeches, but sometimes a
look of careless derision and contempt, which must have caused him
often to grind his teeth behind his mask of humility. Philip's
courtesy to him was distinctly chilly; while Tom treated him rather
with the indifferent amiability of a new and not very close
acquaintance, than with any revival of old brotherly familiarity. I
shared Phil's doubts upon Ned's spiritual regeneration, and many
people in the town were equally skeptical. But there were enough of
those credulous folk that delight in the miraculous, who believed
fully in this marvellous conversion, and never tired of discussing the
wonder. And so Ned went about, posing as a brand snatched from the
burning, to the amusement of one-half the town, the admiration of the
other half, and the curiosity of both.

"'Tis all fudge, says I," quoth lean old Bill Meadows, the watchman at
the Faringfield wharves. "His story and his face don't hitch. He
declares he was convarted by the Methodies, and he talks their talk
about salvation and redemption and the like. But if he really had
religion their way, he'd wear the face o' joy and gladness. Whereas he
goes about looking as sober as a covenanter that expected the day of
judgment to-morrow and knew he was predestinated for one O' the goats.
Methodie convarts don't wear Presbyterian faces. Ecod, sir" (this he
said to Phil, with whom he was on terms of confidence), "he's got it
in his head that religion and a