Anthony was a quiet and sweet-tempered little fellow; the school in
which he was educated taught him to endure with patience trials that
would have broken the spirit of a less neglected child.

Except the kindness which he received from Ruth, who was now married to
a laborer, and the mother of children of her own, he was a stranger to
sympathy and affection; and he did not expect to receive from strangers
the tenderness which he never experienced at home.

The mind of a child, like the mind of a grown person, requires
excitement: and, as Anthony could neither read nor write, and his father
seldom deigned to notice him, he was forced to seek abroad for those
amusements which he could not obtain at home. By the time he had
completed his eighth year he was to be seen daily mingling with the poor
boys in the village, with face unwashed and hair uncombed, and clothes
more ragged and dirty than those of his indigent associates.

One fine summer afternoon, while engaged in the exciting game of
pitch-and-toss, a handsome elderly gentleman rode up to the group of
boys, and asked the rosy ragged Anthony if he would run before him and
open the gate that led to the Hall.

"Wait awhile," cried the little fellow, adroitly poising the halfpenny
that he was about to throw, on the tip of his finger. "If I win by this
toss I will show you the way to my father's."

"Your father!" said the gentleman, surveying attentively the ragged
child. "Are you the gardener's son?"

"No, no," replied the boy, laughing and winking to his companions; "not