The comfort of being good dawned upon him once more, but still there was much to contend with; he had acquired such a habit of prevarication that, if by any means taken by surprise, his impulse was to avoid giving a straightforward answer, and when he recollected his sincerity, the truth came with the air of falsehood.

Moreover, he was an arrant coward, and provoked tricks by his manifest and unreasonable terrors.

It was no slight exercise of patience that Norman underwent, but this was the interest he had made for himself; and the recovery of the boy's attachment, and his improvement, though slow, were a present recompense.
Ernescliffe, Larkins, and others of the boys, held fast to him, and after the first excitement was past, all the rest returned to their former tone.

He was decidedly as much respected as ever, and, at the same time, regarded with more favour than when his strictness was resented.

And as for the discipline of the school, that did not suffer.
Anderson felt that, for his own credit, he must not allow the rules to be less observed than in May's reign, and he enforced them upon the reluctant and angry boys with whom he had been previously making common cause.