"But the spoite's clean gone with the rist, Moirton. And he'll be a praycher yit. Didn't he give me a talkin' to this mornin', at breakfast? Think of the impudent little scoundrel a-venturin' to tell his ould masther that he ought to repint of his sins! He talked to his mother, too, till she croid. He'll make her belave she is a great sinner whin she aint wicked a bit, excipt in her grammar, which couldn't be worse. I've talked to her about that mesilf. Now, Moirton, I'll tell ye the symptoms of a praycher among the Mithodists. Those that take it aisy, and don't bother a body, you needn't be afeard of. But those that git it bad, and are throublesome, and middlesome, and aggravatin', ten to one'll turn out praychers. The lad that'll tackle his masther and his mother at breakfast the very mornin' afther he's got the blissin, while he's yit a babe, so to spake, and prayche to 'em single-handed, two to one, is a-takin' the short cut acrost the faild to be a praycher of the worst sort; one of the kind that's as thorny as a honey-locust." "Well, why can't they be peaceable, and let other people alone? That meddling is just what I don't like," growled Morton. "Bedad, Moirton, that's jist fwat Ahab and Jizebel thought about ould Elijy! We don't any of us loike to have our wickedness or laziness middled with. 'Twas middlin', sure, that the Pharisays objicted to; and if the blissed Jaysus hadn't been so throublesome, he wouldn't niver a been crucified." "Why, Brady, you'll be a Methodist yourself," said Mr. Job Goodwin. "Niver a bit of it, Mr. Goodwin. I'm rale lazy. This lookin' at the state of me moind's insoides, and this chasin' afther me sins up hill and down dale all the toime, would niver agray with me frail constitootion. This havin' me spiritooal pulse examined ivery wake in class-matin', and this watchin' and prayin', aren't for sich oidlers as me. I'm too good-natered to trate mesilf that way, sure. Didn't you iver notice that the highest vartoos ain't possible to a rale good-nater'd man?" Here Mrs. Goodwin looked at the cake on the hoe in front of the fire, and found it well browned. Supper was ready, and the conversation drifted to Morton's prospective arrangement with Captain Lumsden to cultivate his hill farm on the "sheers." Morton's father shook his head ominously. Didn't believe the Captain was in 'arnest. Ef he was, Mort mout git the fever in the winter, or die, or be laid up. 'Twouldn't do to depend on no sech promises, no way.