d as they
pressed in, the moonlight streaming through the latticed window showed
Lob lying by the fire.

"There's his tail! Ay--k!" screeched Annie the lass, and away she went,
without drawing breath to the top garret, where she locked and bolted
herself in, and sat her bandbox flat, and screamed for help.

But it was the plumy tail of the sheep dog, who was lying there with the
Lubber-fiend. And Lob was asleep, with his arms around the sheep dog's
neck, and the sheep dog's head lay on his breast, and his own head
touched the dog's.

And it was a smaller head than the parson had been led to expect, and it
had thick black hair.

As the parson bent over the hearth, Thomasina took Miss Kitty round the
waist, and Miss Betty clutched her black velvet bag till the steel beads
ran into her hands, and they were quite prepared for an explosion, and
sulphur, and blue lights, and thunder.

And then the parson's deep round voice broke the silence, saying,--

"Is that you, lad? GOD bless you, John Broom. You're welcome home!"

THE END

Some things--such as gossip--gain in the telling, but there are others
before which words fail, though each heart knows its own power of
sympathy. And such was the joy of the little ladies and of Thomasina at
John Broom's return.

The sheep dog had had his satisfaction out long ago, and had kept it to
himself, but how Pretty Cocky crowed, and chuckled, and danced, and
bowed his crest, and covered his face with his amber wings, and kicked
his seed-pot over, and spilled his water-pot on to the Derbyshire marble
chess-table, and screamed till the room rang again, and went on
screaming, with Miss Kitty's pocket-handkerchief over his head to keep
him quiet, my poor pen can but imperfectly describe.

The desire to atone for the past which had led John Broom to act the
part of one of those Good-Fellows who have, we must fear, finally
deserted us, will be easily understood. And to a nature of his type, the
earning of some self-respect, and of a character before others, was
perhaps a necessary prelude to future well-doing.

He did do well. He became a good scholar, as farmers were then. He
spent as much of his passionate energies on the farm as the farm would
absorb, and he restrained the rest. It is not cockatoos only who have
sometimes to live and be happy in this unfinished life with one wing
clipped.

In fine weather, when the perch was put into the garden, Miss Betty was
sometimes st