out into touching details about his family, to
which no one listened. John, in the midst of this disorderly competition
of poverty and meanness, sat stunned, contemplating the mountain bulk of
his misfortunes.

At last, upon a pledge that each should apply to his family with a
common frankness, this convention of unhappy young asses broke up, went
down the common stair, and in the grey of the spring morning, with the
streets lying dead empty all about them, the lamps burning on into the
daylight in diminished lustre, and the birds beginning to sound
premonitory notes from the groves of the town gardens, went each his own
way with bowed head and echoing footfall.

The rooks were awake in Randolph Crescent; but the windows looked down,
discreetly blinded, on the return of the prodigal. John's pass-key was a
recent privilege; this was the first time it had been used; and, O! with
what a sickening sense of his unworthiness he now inserted it into the
well-oiled lock and entered that citadel of the proprieties! All slept;
the gas in the hall had been left faintly burning to light his return; a
dreadful stillness reigned, broken by the deep ticking of the eight-day
clock. He put the gas out, and sat on a chair in the hall, waiting and
counting the minutes, longing for any human countenance. But when at
last he heard the alarm-clock spring its rattle in the lower story, and
the servants begin to be about, he instantly lost heart, and fled to his
own room, where he threw himself upon the bed.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JOHN ENJOYS THE HARVEST HOME

Shortly after breakfast, at which he assisted with a highly tragical
countenance, John sought his father where he used to sit, presumably in
religious meditation, on the Sabbath mornings. The old gentleman looked
up with that sour inquisitive expression that came so near to smiling
and was so different in effect.

"This is a time when I do not like to be disturbed," he said.

"I know that," returned John; "but I have--I want--I've made a dreadful
mess of it," he broke out, and turned to the window.

Mr. Nicholson sat silent for an appreciable time while his unhappy son
surveyed the poles in the back green, and a certain yellow cat that was
perched upon the wall. Despair sat upon John as he gazed: and he raged
to think of the dreadful series of his misdeeds, and the essential
innocence that lay behind them.

"Well," said the father, with an obvious effort, but in very qu