umstances."

"Shall you tell grandmother Ruth?" I asked.

The old Squire considered it for several moments before he ventured to
speak again. At last he lifted his head.

"On the whole I think it will be better if we do not," he replied. "It
will give her a great shock, particularly Jonathan's second marriage up
there in Canada. His disappearance has now largely faded from her mind.
It is best so.

"Not that I justify it," he continued. "I think really that he did a
shocking thing. But I understand it and overlook it in him. He bore his
life there with Jotham just as long as he could. Jock had that kind of
temperament. After Anice died there was nothing to keep him there.

"The fault was not all with Jotham," the old Squire continued
reflectively. "Jotham was just what he was, hasty, willful and a poor
head for management. No, the real fault was in the mistake in giving up
the farm and all the rest of the property to Jotham when he came home to
live. Jonathan should have kept his farm in his own hands and managed it
himself as long as he was well and retained his faculties. True, Jotham
was an only child and very likely would have left home if he couldn't
have had his own way; but that would have been better, a thousand times
better, than all the unhappiness that followed.

"No," the old Squire said again with conviction, "I don't much believe
in elderly people's deeding away their farms or other businesses to
their sons as long as they are able to manage them for themselves. It is
a very bad method and has led to a world of trouble."

The old gentleman stopped suddenly and glanced at me.

"My boy, I quite forgot that you are still living at home with me and
perhaps are beginning to think that it is time you had a deed of the old
farm," he said in an apologetic voice.

"No, sir!" I exclaimed vehemently, for I had learned my lesson from what
I had seen up in Canada. "You keep your property in your own hands as
long as you live. If you ever see symptoms in me of wanting to play the
Jotham, I hope that you will put me outside the house door and shut it
on me!"

The old Squire laughed and patted my shoulder affectionately.

"Well, I'm eighty-three now, you know," he said slowly. "It can hardly
be such a very great while."

I shook my head by way of protest, for the thought was an exceedingly
unpleasant one.

However, the old gentleman only laughed again.

"No, it can hardly be such a very great while," he r