"You need not be afraid of me. I am not going to strike you, though you
did strike me; because it is wrong to return evil for evil."

"Fine talking, indeed!" rejoined Tom, tauntingly. "I know very well the
reason why you will not strike me again. You dare not, because I am the
biggest and strongest. You are afraid of me."

Now Ned was no coward. He would have fought in a good cause with a boy
twice his size; and he was very much provoked at the words and manner of
his companion.

He had a hard struggle with himself not to return the blow; but he kept
firm to the good resolution he had made, and went away.

As he was returning home very sorrowful, he could not help thinking how
happy he had expected to be that evening; and he regretted extremely
that his grandmother would have no cloak to keep her warm in the cold
weather. Still, the recollection that he had patiently borne the blow
and insulting speeches of Tom, and thus endeavoured to put in practice
the good precepts he had been taught, consoled him, and made him feel
less sad than he would otherwise have been.

"How did you get that black eye, Ned?" asked his grandmother, as soon as
she saw him. "I hope you have not been fighting."

"No, grandmother, indeed I have not," replied Ned; and he told her how
it had happened.

His grandmother said that he was a good boy to have acted as he did, and
added, "It makes me happier to find that you behave well, than twenty