. Maxwell went bustling about
getting dinner ready. Tommy told me all about himself from the very
beginning, but I really quite forget some of it. He never kept any pigs
at all, but he kept some sheep instead--he went out to America and did
it--and then he was a railway man, and then he had a fever, and then he
got into bad company, and at last he came to London, and he was an
omnibus man there, and then a cabman, and then he drank too much beer,
and his money all went away, and he was ashamed of himself, and so he
wouldn't write home, and then he smashed his cab against the lamp-post,
and then he drank too much again."

"I don't think you need tell me any more of his misdoings," said Sir
Edward, drily.

"But, you see, he had to get very bad before he got good, because he was
a prodigal son. And he is sorry now. He said he never, never would have
come home until he was a good man, only one day he listened to a man
preaching a sermon in the middle of a street on a Sunday night, and he
felt uncomfortable, and then he was spoken to after by--now guess,
uncle, who do you think?"

Sir Edward could not guess, so Milly went on triumphantly: "Why, it was
my Jack, and he began to talk to him, and told him he was like him once,
and he said he was looking out for a Tommy Maxwell. Now wasn't that
wonderful, when it was Tommy himself he spoke to! Well, Tommy said he
hadn't the face to go home till he was better, but Jack told him not to
wait a day longer, for his father and mother were waiting for him; but
the strange thing was that even then Tommy waited a whole two weeks
before he made up his mind to come. Now don't you think he was foolish,
uncle?"

"Very foolish."

"I couldn't quite understand it, but nurse says there are lots of people
like that, waiting to make themselves better, instead of running home
just as they are. She says some of God's prodigal sons do that; do you
think many do, uncle?"

"I daresay."

"And Tommy said, though he wanted to see his home again dreadfully, he
had a great fight with himself to come at all. I didn't know prodigal
sons found it so difficult--the one in the Bible didn't, not when he
once made up his mind. Well, and so Tommy got out at the station--I'm
sorry he came by train, but Jack's uncle paid for his ticket--I would
rather he had run the whole way."

"Why would you?" asked Sir Edward, with a smile.

"I think it would have been more proper if he had," said the child
slowly, her