etter to be discreet, "I doubt if
I should be welcome. I've a letter from the governor in my pocket, which
I haven't yet had courage to open. I dare say it won't be pleasant
reading; besides which, it's been chasing me round the country for the
last five or six weeks, and must be rather ancient history."

"Look at it and see," she advised. "They may be ready to kill the fatted
calf for you, after all."

"I'm afraid they do regard me rather in the light of a prodigal," he
admitted. "However, here goes." And breaking the seal of the envelope,
he read the letter aloud:

"THE PALACE, BLANFORD.

"MY DEAR SON:

"Do you realise that it is nearly a year since your Aunt Matilda
and I have received news of you? This has been a source of great
grief and pain to both of us, but it has not moved me to anger. It
has rather caused me to devote such hours as I could spare from
the preparation of my series of sermons on the miracle of Jonah to
personal introspection, in the endeavour to discover, if possible,
whether the cause of our estrangement lay in any defect of my own.

"It may be that you achieve a certain degree of spiritual
enlightenment in producing a book entitled 'The Purple Kangaroo.'
I hope so, though I have not read it. Nor do I wholly agree with
your good aunt, who contends that the title savours too much of
the Apocrypha, and I say nothing of the undesirable popularity you
seem to have attained in the United States. I only ask you to come
home.

"As a proof of her reconciliation, your aunt included a copy of
your book in her last mission box to the Ojibway Indians. I shall
always be glad to receive and make welcome any of your friends at
the palace, no matter how different their tastes and principles
may be to my own well-defined course of action.

"In the hope of better things,

"YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER."

"Of course you'll go," Violet said softly.

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied.

"I do," she returned. "It's your duty. What a dear old chap he must
be!--so thoroughly prosy and honest. I'm sure I should love him. I know
just the sort of man he is. A downright Nonconformist minister of the
midland counties, who was consecrated a Bishop by mistake."

Cecil paused a minute, thinking it over.

"How about the others?" he said.

"Ah, yes," she replied, "the others. But perhaps you don't clas