h the regiment: but he serenely attributed this to
mean-spirited jealousy of the superior advantages he was enjoying, and
it only made him more anxious for the coming of the time when he could
"cut the whole mob of beggars," as Ned Burnleigh phrased it.

A few days more would end the regiment's term of service, and he readily
obtained permission to return him in advance.

The first real blow his confidence received was when he walked down the
one principal street of Sardis, and was forced to a perception of the
fact that there was an absence of that effusive warmth with which the
Sardis people had ever before welcomed back their young townsman, of
whose good looks and gentlemanliness they had always been proud. Now
people looked at him in a curious way. They turned to whisper to each
other, with sarcastic smiles and knowing winks, as he came into view,
and they did not come forward to offer him their hands as of old. It
astonished him that nobody alluded to the company or to anything that
had happened to it.

Turning at length from the main street, he entered the lateral one
leading to his home. As he did so, he heard one boy call out to another
in that piercing treble which boys employ in making their confidential
communications to one another, across a street,

"S-a-y-, did you know that Hank Glen 'd got back? and they say he looks
pale yet?"

"Has he?" the reply came in high falsetto, palpably tinged with that
fine scorn of a healthy boy, for anything which does not exactly square
with his young highness's ideas. "Come back to mammy, eh? Well, it's a
pity she ever let him go away from her. Hope she'll keep him with her
now. He don't seem to do well out of reach of her apron strings."

The whole truth flashed upon him: Envious ones had slandered him at
home, as a coward.

He walked onward in a flurry of rage. The thought that he had done
anything to deserve criticism could not obtrude itself between the
joints of his triple-plated armor of self-esteem.

A swelling contempt for his village critics flushed his heart.

"Spiteful, little-minded country boobies," he said to himself with an
impatient shake of his head, as if to adjust his hair, which was his
usual sign of excitement, "they've always hated me because I was above
them. They take advantage of the least opportunity to show their mean
jealousy."

After a moment's pause: "But I don't care. I'd a little rather have
their dislike than their good-will. I