CHAPTER IX.
HARD TIMES.
The new arrangement worked exceedingly well.
As to Edgar's innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak with any authority.

Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of time for any great foolishness.
Certain unpleasant things had transpired on that eventful Friday night when he had missed his appointment with his fellow-students, which had resulted in an open scandal too disagreeable to be passed over by the college authorities; the redoubtable Tony had been returned with thanks to his fond parents in a distant part of the state, and two others had been temporarily suspended.
Edgar Noble was not too blind to see the happy chance that interfered with his presence on that occasion, and was sensible enough to realize that, had he been implicated in the least degree (he scorned the possibility of his taking any active part in such scurrilous proceedings), he would probably have shared Tony's fate.
Existence was wearing a particularly dismal aspect on that afternoon when Edgar had met Polly Oliver in the Berkeley woods.

He felt "nagged," injured, blue, out of sorts with fate.

He had not done anything very bad, he said to himself; at least, nothing half so bad as lots of other fellows, and yet everybody frowned on him.

His father had, in his opinion, been unnecessarily severe; while his mother and sister had wept over him (by letter) as if he were a thief and a forger, instead of a fellow who was simply having a "little fling." He was annoyed at the conduct of Scott Burton,--"king of snobs and prigs," he named him,--who had taken it upon himself to inform Philip Noble of his (Edgar's) own personal affairs; and he was enraged at being preached at by that said younger brother.
But of late everything had taken an upward turn, and by way of variety, existence turned a smiling face toward him.