s with sorrow to the grave."

There was a mild severity of tone which astonished me and revealed
Mother Hubbard in a new light, but I was too interested in the change
which came over the startled man's face to think much of it at the time.

"So you recognise me," he said. "I thought your face was familiar,
though the young lady's is not so. Well, everybody will know of my
return soon, so I need not complain that you have anticipated the news
by a few hours. Yes, the prodigal has come home, but too late to
receive his father's blessing."

"Not too late to receive _a_ Father's blessing, Joe," replied Mother
Hubbard; "not too late to find forgiveness and reconciliation if you
have come in the right spirit; but too late to bring the joy-light into
your earthly father's eyes: too late to hear the welcome he would have
offered you."

"I do not ask nor deserve to be spared," he said, with some dignity,
"and my first explanations shall be offered to those who have most
right to them. But this I will say, for I can see that you speak with
sincerity. I came back to seek forgiveness and to find peace, but I am
justly punished for my sin in that I forfeit both. You have not said
much, but you have said enough to let me realise that the curse of Cain
is upon me."

"It is not," said Mother Hubbard calmly and with firmness; "your father
would have told you so. Go home to your mother, and you will find in
her forgiveness and love a dim reflection of the forgiveness and love
of God, and peace will follow."

He rested one elbow upon the table and leaned his head upon his hand,
whilst his fingers tapped a mechanical tune upon his forehead, but he
did not speak for several minutes--nor did we. Then he rose and took
the still damp overcoat from the clothes-horse before the fire, and
said as he put it on:

"Since I left home I have had many hard tasks to perform, But the
hardest of them all now lies before me, and though I have made some
little money I would give every penny I possess if the past could be
undone and that grey-haired man brought back to life. I am accounted a
bold man, but I would sooner face a lion in the Rhodesian jungle than
my mother and sister on yonder farm."

"Go in peace!" said the little mother. "God stands by the side of
every man who does his duty, and your mother, remember, is about to
experience a great joy. Let them see that you love them both, and that
you loved your father too, and that wi