, was occupied with other things, and he
was humming over the verse of a hymn the boys had been singing--'Far
from my heavenly home.' There was no drilling into them the proper
rendering of the last pathetic words--

O guide me through the desert here,
And bring me home at last.

He quite started when a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice,
changed indeed, and weak, but still the voice that in old days--not so
very old either--was the one voice for him in all the world, said:
'Father!'

I think just for one minute his impulse was to take her in his arms and
forget the ingratitude and desertion and deceit, like the father in the
parable whose heart went out to the poor prodigal while he was yet a
long way off; but the next moment the cold, bitter, resentful feelings
quenched the gentler impulse, and he drew away his arm from her
detaining hold, and passed on along the flagged path as if he were
unconscious of her presence, and this on the very threshold of His
house, who so pitifully forgives the debts of His servants, forasmuch
as they have not to pay.

But he had not reached the churchyard gate before she was at his side
again.

'Stop,' she said; 'you must hear me. It's not for my own sake, it's
the child. It's a little girl; the others were boys, and I didn't mind
so much; if they 'd grown up, they might have got on somehow--but
there! they 're safe anyhow--both of them in one week,' wailed the
mother's voice, protesting against her own words that she did not mind
about them. 'But this is a girl, and not a bit like him. She 's like
me, and you used to say I was like mother. She's like mother, I 'm
sure she is. There, just look at her. It's so dark, but you can see
even by this light that she's not like the Blakes.' She was fumbling
to draw back the shawl from the baby's head with her disengaged hand,
while with the other she still held a grip on his arm that was almost
painful in its pressure; but he stood doggedly with his head turned
away, and gave no sign of hearing what she said.

'He left me six months ago,' she went on, 'and I 've struggled along
somehow. I don't want ever to see him again. They say he's gone to
America, but I don't care. I don't mind starving myself, but it's the
little girl--Oh! I 've not come to ask you to take me in, though it
wouldn't be for long,' and a wretched, hollow cough that had
interrupted her words once or twice before, broke in now as if to
confirm