raised above absolute want. His father was an idle profligate, his mother a bigot, entirely under the control of her brother, the priest. The boy grew up in the strange jumble of fastings and confessions, prayers and penances, with swearing, drinking, and all manner of profaneness, acted continually in his presence, till his father was suddenly seized with a fit of apoplexy, on recovering from which he had some 'compunctious visitings,' and desired his son, for the first time, to read the Bible for him. There was none to be had except one which had been left in pledge by a poor Protestant woman, who owed a trifle to the little shop kept by these people. Ned objected to read out of such an unholy book, but the father insisted, alleging that his time was hastening to a close, and it was no season to stand upon ceremonies. A Bible was a Bible; and, if it was good _at all_ to read it, the Protestant version could not be _very_ far astray. Ned reluctantly complied, and felt it necessary at first, I dare say, to perform a sort of quarantine after touching the sacred volume; but his father desired that neither his wife nor the priest her brother should hear a word about the matter. The invalid gradually recovered strength, which he ascribed to the fit of piety that had come upon him; and though he did not dream of changing his religion, and was punctilious in his observance of its rites, he still felt a sort of superstitious respect for the book that had been instrumental in keeping up a serious impression of divine things upon his mind; and was not displeased at seeing his son frequently poring over its contents after the daily task of reading to the old man was ended."