"'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 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.