college. Did you hear the rumors that came back of
what he did there?"

"There was some talk," Nancy agreed.

"Talk! Mistress McVeigh; downright scandal, I should call it! I know
he was expelled for attending a party at the Principal's own home in an
intoxicated condition, and afterwards fighting with a teacher who
undertook to reprimand him."

Nancy looked up from her knitting, and an amused twinkle was in her
eyes.

"The lad sowed wild oats sure enough, Mr. Moore, and good, tall ones,
with full heads at that, but he's only an image o' his father, in that
old John's recklessness runs to makin' money, and young John's to
spendin'. It's not that I like bringin' up bygones, but the father was
a bit loose in his day, too. I can remember, before old John married,
he would come from town takin' the width o' the road fer his path, and
singin' at the top o' his voice something he learnt out o' a Burns'
book o' poetry. It was the wife that he brought from the city, bless
her good soul, that turned his work into a gold-mine. She guided him
out o' his evil way and kept him hard at his dealin's from morning till
night. It'll be the same with young John. He's spendin' his money
now, and makin' the whole countryside ring with his pranks, but a foine
miss'll spy him out some day, and then his mind'll forget his throat
and dwell on his pocket. He'll never fail, fer he takes after his
mother in the face, and she was the envy of the people the length o'
the Monk Road, and farther. It's an old woman I'm gettin' now, an'
I've watched many young men developin' character, an' I'm just a bit o'
a judge. Ye'll admit I've had a grand opportunity to study their evil
side, and what I don't see is told me by the neighbors; then their good
side turns up after awhile, like a rainbow after a shower. I find it
takes wise men to be really bad ones, but, after they've learnt their
lesson, they see what a dried-up skeleton an evil life is, and then
it's a race to make up fer their wasted years. Course, if a fool is
led into idle habits, he must be led out again, and it's doubtful
whether the process is very purifyin'. But it's different when a man
like John Keene's son sees the error o' his ways. I tell ye, Mr.
Moore, it's only a question o' time, an' young John'll be as set as his
father, but he'll no be as tight, I'm thinkin'. He's got his mother's
heart, ye know."

"You have rare assurance in the strength of human nature, Mist