But for that, he would have run for it.

Twenty times a day was he so tempted.
At school, though it was better, yet it was bad.

For he was ten times as much laughed at for his new clothes, though they were of the plainest, as he had been for his old rags.

Still he bore all the pangs of unwelcome advancement without a grumble, for the sake of his friend alone, whose dog he remained as much as ever.

But his past life of cold and neglect, and hunger and blows, and homelessness and rags, began to glimmer as in the distance of a vaporous sunset, and the loveless freedom he had then enjoyed gave it a bloom as of summer-roses.
I wonder whether there may not have been in some unknown corner of the old lady's mind this lingering remnant of paganism, that, in reclaiming the outcast from the error of his ways, she was making an offering acceptable to that God whom her mere prayers could not move to look with favour upon her prodigal son Andrew.