Either he was affronted, or he was ashamed of her seeing his rags, or, what was not quite impossible, there was no shirt at all in the case; and he had a sturdy sort of independence about him, that made him always turn surly at any notion of anything being done for him for charity.

How or why he stayed on with the farmer was hard to guess, for he had very scanty pay, and rough usage; the farmer did not like him; the farmer’s wife scolded him constantly, and laid on his shoulders all the mischief that was done about the place; and the shuffler gave him half his own work to do, and hunted him about from dawn till past sunset.  He was always going at the end of every week, but never gone; perhaps he had undergone too much in his wanderings, to be ready to begin them again; or perhaps either Caesar or Harold, one or both, kept him at Friarswood.  And there might be another reason, too, for no one had ever spoken to him like Mr. Cope.  Very few had ever thrown him a kindly word, or seemed to treat him like a thing with feelings, and those few had been rough and unmannerly; but Mr. Cope’s good-natured smile and pleasant manner had been a very different thing; and perhaps Paul promised to come to the Confirmation class, chiefly because of the friendly tone in which he was invited.

When there, he really liked it.  He had always liked what he was taught, apart from the manner of teaching; and now both manner and lessons were delightful to him.  His answers were admirable, and it was not all head knowledge, for very little more than a really kind way of putting it was needed, to make him turn in his loneliness to rest in the thought of the ever-present Father.  Hard as the discipline of his workhouse home had been, it had kept him from much outward harm; the little he had seen in his wanderings had shocked him, and he was more untaught in evil than many lads who thought themselves more respectable, so there was no habit of wickedness to harden and blunt him; and the application of all he had learnt before, found his heart ready.

He had not gone to church since he left the workhouse:  he did not think it belonged to vagabonds like him; besides, he always felt walls like a prison; and he had not profited much by the workhouse prayers, which were read on week-days by the master, and on Sundays by a chaplain, who always had more to do than he could manage, and only went to the paupers when they were very ill.  But when Mr. Cope talked to him of the duty of going to church, he said, ‘I will, Sir;’ and he sat in the gallery with the young lads, who were not quite as delicate as Alfred.

The service seemed to rest him, and to be like being brought near a friend; and he had been told that church might always be his home.  He took a pleasure in going thither—­the more, perhaps, that he rather liked to shew how little he cared for remarks upon his appearance.  There was a great deal of independence about him; and, having escaped from the unloving maintenance of the parish, while he had as yet been untaught what affection or gratitude meant, he would not be beholden to any one.