ch made him laugh heartily. But a shade came upon his face when I
rehearsed the scene we had with my uncle and Mr. Allen in the garden.

"What," says he, "Mr. Carvel hath sent you to Mr. Allen on your uncle's
advice?"

"No," I answered, "to do my uncle justice, he said not a word to Mr.
Carvel about it."

The captain turned the subject. He asked me much concerning the rector
and what he taught me, and appeared but ill-pleased at that I had
to tell him. But he left me without so much as a word of comment or
counsel. For it was a principle with Captain Clapsaddle not to influence
in any way the minds of the young, and he would have deemed it unfair to
Mr. Carvel had he attempted to win my sympathies to his. Captain
Daniel was the first the old gentleman asked to see when visitors were
permitted him, and you may be sure the faithful soldier was below stairs
waiting for the summons.

I was some three weeks with my new tutor, the rector, before my
grandfather's illness, and went back again as soon as he began to mend.
I was not altogether unhappy, owing to a certain grim pleasure I had
in debating with him, which I shall presently relate. There was much
to annoy and anger me, too. My cousin Philip was forever carping and
criticising my Greek and Latin, and it was impossible not to feel his
sneer at my back when I construed. He had pat replies ready to correct
me when called upon, and 'twas only out of consideration for Mr. Carvel
that I kept my hands from him when we were dismissed.

I think the rector disliked Philip in his way as much as did I in mine.
The Reverend Bennett Allen, indeed, might have been a very good fellow
had Providence placed him in a different setting; he was one of those
whom his Excellency dubbed "fools from necessity." He should have been
born with a fortune, though I can think of none he would not have run
through in a year or so. But nature had given him aristocratic tastes,
with no other means toward their gratification than good looks,
convincing ways, and a certain bold, half-defiant manner, which went far
with his Lordship and those like him, who thought Mr. Allen excellent
good company. With the rector, as with too many others, holy orders were
but a means to an end. It was a sealed story what he had been before he
came to Governor Sharpe with Baltimore's directions to give him the best
in the colony. But our rakes and wits, and even our solid men, like
my grandfather, received him with op