glum face goes together; and he
thereby gives the lie to his Methodie convarsion."

Ned was at first in rather sore straits for a companion, none of his
old associates taking well to his reformation. He had to fall back
upon poor Cornelius, who was always the most obliging of men and could
never refuse his company or aught else to any tolerable person that
sought it. But in a week or so Ned had won back Fanny to her old
allegiance, and she, in the kindness of her heart, and in her pity
that the poor repentant fellow should be so misunderstood, his
amendment so doubted, gave him as much of her time as he asked for.
She walked with him, rode with him, and boated with him. This was all
greatly to my cost and annoyance; for, ever since she had so gently
commiserated my loss of Margaret, I had learned more and more to value
her sweet consolation, rely upon her sympathy in all matters, and find
serenity and happiness in her society. It had come to be that two were
company, three were none--particularly when the third was Ned. So, if
she _would_ go about with him, I left her to go with him alone; and I
suffered, and pined, and raged inwardly, in consequence. 'Twas this
deprivation that taught me how necessary she was to me; and how her
presence gave my days half their brightness, my nights half their
beauty, my taste of everything in life half its sweetness. Philip was
unreservedly welcome to Madge now; I wondered I had been so late in
discovering the charms of Fanny.

But one day I noticed that a coolness had arisen between her and Ned;
a scarce evident repulsion on her part, a cessation of interest on
his. This was, I must confess, as greatly to my satisfaction as to my
curiosity. But Fanny was no more a talebearer than if she had been of
our sex; and Ned was little like to disclose the cause intentionally:
so I did not learn it until by inference from a passage that occurred
one night at the King's Arms' Tavern.

Poor Philip, avoided and ignored by Madge, who had not yet relented,
was taking an evening stroll with me, in the soothing company of the
pedagogue; when we were hailed by Ned with an invitation to a mug of
ale in the tavern. Struck with the man's apparent wistfulness for
company, and moved by a fellow feeling of forlornness, Philip
accepted; and Cornelius, always acquiescent, had not the ill grace to
refuse. So the four of us sat down together at a table.

"I wish I might offer you madeira, gentlemen; or punc