customary and normal effect upon him; it had made him think
ridiculously high of his own gifts, powers, attainments, and at the
same time doubt whether they would pass with those of others; it made
him despise all flesh, as if he were of a superior race, and yet have
an idle and weak fear of coming in contact with them, from a dread of
his incompetency to cope with them; so he at once depreciated and
exalted, to an absurd degree, both himself and others.

"Ned," said the Doctor to him one day, in his gruffest tone, "you are
not turning out to be the boy I looked for and meant to make. I have
given you sturdy English instruction, and solidly grounded you in
matters that the poor superficial people and time merely skim over; I
looked to see the rudiments of a man in you, by this time; and you
begin to mope and pule as if your babyhood were coming back on you. You
seem to think more than a boy of your years should; and yet it is not
manly thought, nor ever will be so. What do you mean, boy, by making
all my care of you come to nothing, in this way?"

"I do my best, Doctor Grim," said Ned, with sullen dignity. "What you
teach me, I learn. What more can I do?"

"I'll tell you what, my fine fellow," quoth Doctor Grim, getting rude,
as was his habit. "You disappoint me, and I'll not bear it. I want you
to be a man; and I'll have you a man or nothing. If I had foreboded
such a fellow as you turn out to be, I never would have taken you from
the place where, as I once told you, I found you,--the almshouse!"

"O, Doctor Grim, Doctor Grim!" cried little Elsie, in a tone of grief
and bitter reproach.