with a look that seemed to utter volumes of contempt for their moral
imbecility, He was also a little addicted to the expression of a
belief that, where there was so great an observance of the externals
of religion, there could not be much of the substance. It is not our
task to explain what is or what ought to be the substance of
Christianity, but merely to record in this place the opinions of Major
Effingham.

Knowing the sentiments of the father in relation to this people, it
was no wonder that the son hesitated to avow his connection with, nay,
even his dependence on the integrity of, a Quaker.

It has been said that Marmaduke deduced his origin from the
contemporaries and friends of Penn. His father had married without
the pale of the church to which he belonged, and had, in this manner,
forfeited some of the privileges of his offspring. Still, as young
Marmaduke was educated in a colony and society where even the ordinary
intercourse between friends was tinctured with the aspect of this mild
religion, his habits and language were some what marked by its
peculiarities. His own marriage at a future day with a lady without
not only the pale, but the influence, of this sect of religionists,
had a tendency, it is true, to weaken his early impressions; still he
retained them in some degree to the hour of his death, and was
observed uniformly, when much interested or agitated, to speak in the
language of his youth. But this is anticipating our tale.

When Marmaduke first became the partner of young Effingham, he was
quite the Quaker in externals; and it was too dangerous an experiment
for the son to think of encountering the prejudices of the father on
this subject. The connection, therefore, remained a profound secret