he come? Why did you not send for me? My dear old friend, how happy
you must be to get him back after all these years of watching and
waiting!'

A curiously sad expression crossed Mr. O'Brien's rugged face as Audrey
spoke in her softest and most sympathetic voice.

'Ay, I am not denying that it is happiness to get the lad back,' he
returned, in a slow, ruminative fashion, as though he found it difficult
to shape his thoughts into words; 'but it is a mixed sort of happiness,
too. Come in and sit down, Miss Ross--Mat has gone out for a prowl, as
he calls it--and I will tell you how it all happened while Prissy sees
to the tea;' and as Mrs. Baxter withdrew at this very broad hint, Mr.
O'Brien drew up one of the old-fashioned elbow-chairs to the fire, and
then, seating himself, took up his pipe from the hob, and looked
thoughtfully into the empty bowl. 'Things get terribly mixed in this
world,' he continued, 'and pleasures mostly lose their flavour before
one has a chance of enjoying them. I am thinking that the father of the
Prodigal Son did not find it all such plain sailing after the feast was
over, and he had time to look into things more closely. That elder
brother would not be the pleasantest of companions for many a long day;
he would still have a sort of grudge, like my Prissy here.'

'Oh, I hope not!'

'Oh, it is true, though. Human nature is human nature all the world
over. But, there, I am teasing you with all this rigmarole; only I seem
somehow confused, and as though I could not rightly arrange my thoughts.
When did Mat come home? Well, it was three nights ago, and--would you
believe it, Miss Ross?--it feels more like three weeks.'

'I wish you had written to me. I would have come to you before.'

'Ay, that was what Prissy said; she was always bidding me take ink and
paper. "There's Miss Ross ought to be told, father"--she was always
dinning it into my ears; but somehow I could not bring myself to write.
"Where's the hurry," I said to Prissy, "when Mat is a fixture here? I
would rather tell Miss Ross myself." And I have had my way, too'--with a
touch of his old humour--'and here we are, talking comfortably as we
have been used to do; and that is better than a stack of letters.'

Audrey smiled. Whatever her private opinion might be, she certainly
offered no contradiction. If she had been in his place, all her world
should have heard of her prodigal's return, and should have been bidden
to eat of the fatte