or not, I can't say. I shall never
forget that night. About two hours later, my father came home. He had
been set upon by a highwayman whom he beat off."

"And what was the result?"

"The result? why, my sister was ill for many weeks. Poor thing, she
never throve, married poorly, flung herself away."

"I don't see much in the story," said my father; "I should have laughed
at it, only there is one thing I don't like."

"What is that?"

"Why, the explanation of that strange child. It seems so odd that he
should be able to interpret it. The idea came this moment into my head.
I daresay it's all nonsense, but, but . . ."

"Oh, I daresay it's nonsense. Let us go in."

"If, after all, it should have been the worship of a demon! Your sister
was punished, you say--she never throve; now how do we know that you may
not be punished too? That child with his confusion of tongues--"

"I really think you are too hard upon him. After all, though not,
perhaps, all you could wish, he is not a bad child; he is always ready to
read the Bible. Let us go in; he is in the room above us; at least he
was two hours ago. I left him there bending over his books; I wonder
what he has been doing all this time. Let us go in, and he shall read to
us."]

"I am getting old," said my father; "and I love to hear the Bible read to
me, for my own sight is something dim; yet I do not wish the child to
read to me this night, I cannot so soon forget what I have heard; but I
hear my eldest son's voice, he is now entering the gate; he shall read
the Bible to us this night. What say you?"

CHAPTER XXI.

The eldest son! The regard and affection which my father entertained for
his first-born were natural enough, and appeared to none more so than
myself, who cherished the same feelings towards him. What he was as a
boy the reader already knows, for the reader has seen him as a boy; fain
would I describe him at the time of which I am now speaking, when he had
attained the verge of manhood, but the pen fails me, and I attempt not
the task; and yet it ought to be an easy one, for how frequently does his
form visit my mind's eye in slumber and in wakefulness, in the light of
day, and in the night watches; but last night I saw him in his beauty and
his strength; he was about to speak, and my ear was on the stretch, when
at once I awoke, and there was I alone, and the night storm was howling
amidst the branches of the pines which surroun