The stop I met with at Maidenhead had spent me so much time that when I came to Isaac Penington’s the meeting there was half over, which gave them occasion after meeting to inquire of me if anything had befallen me on the way which had caused me to come so late: whereupon I related to them what exercise I had met with, and how the Lord had helped me through it: which when they had heard, they rejoiced with me, and for my sake. Great was the love and manifold the kindness which I received from these my worthy friends, Isaac and Mary Penington, while I abode in their family. They were indeed as affectionate parents and tender nurses to me in this time of my religious childhood. For besides their weighty and seasonable counsels and exemplary conversations, they furnished me with means to go to the other meetings of Friends in that country, when the meeting was not in their own house. And indeed, the time I stayed with them was so well spent, that it not only yielded great satisfaction to my mind but turned in good measure to my spiritual advantage in the truth. But that I might not, on the one hand, bear too hard upon my friends, nor on the other hand forget the house of thraldom, after I had staid with them some six or seven weeks (from the time called Easter to the time called Whitsuntide) I took my leave of them to depart home, intending to walk to Wycombe in one day, and from thence home in another. That day that I came home I did not see my father, nor until noon the next day, when I went into the parlour, where he was, to take my usual place at dinner. As soon as I came in I observed by my father’s countenance that my hat was still an offence to him; but when I was sat down, and before I had eaten anything, he made me understand it more fully by saying to me, but in a milder tone than he had formerly used to speak to me in, “If you cannot content yourself to come to dinner without your hive on your head (so he called my hat), pray rise, and go take your dinner somewhere else.” Upon these words I arose from the table, and leaving the room went into the kitchen, where I stayed till the servants went to dinner, and then sat down very contentedly with them. Yet I suppose my father might intend that I should have gone into some other room, and there have eaten by myself but I chose rather to eat with the servants, and did so from thenceforward so long as he and I lived together. And from this time he rather chose, as I thought, to avoid seeing me than to renew the quarrel about my hat.