s
dreams.

The fatted calf was killed for him in a very simple but full-hearted
way. There was no other guest to witness the meeting. 'And here you
are,' said the father.

'Yes, sir, here I am;--all that's left of me.'

'There is quite plenty,' said the father, looking at the large
proportions of his son. 'It seems but a day or two since you went;--and
yet they have been long days. I hardly expected to see you again,
John,--certainly not so soon as this; certainly not in such
circumstances. If ever a man was welcome to a house, you are welcome to
this. And now,--what do you mean to do with yourself?'

'By nine o'clock to-morrow morning you will probably find a pit opened
on the lawn, and I shall be down to the middle, looking for gold. Ah,
sir, I wish you could have known poor Mick Maggott.'

'If he would have made holes in my lawn I am glad he did not come home
with you.' This was the first conversation, but both the father and son
felt that there was a tone about it which had never before been heard
between them.

John Caldigate at this time was so altered in appearance, that they who
had not known him well might possibly have mistaken him. He was now
nearly thirty, but looked older than his age. The squareness of his brow
was squarer, and here and there through his dark brown hair there was to
be seen an early tinge of coming grey; and about his mouth was all the
decision of purpose which comes to a man when he is called upon to act
quickly on his own judgment in matters of importance; and there was that
look of self-confidence which success gives. He had thriven in all that
he had undertaken. In that gold-finding business of his he had made no
mistakes. Men who had been at it when a boy had tried to cheat him, but
had failed. He had seen into such mysteries as the business possessed
with quick glances, and had soon learned to know his way. And he had
neither gambled nor drank,--which are the two rocks on which gold-miners
are apt to wreck their vessels. All this gave him an air of power and
self-assertion which might, perhaps, have been distasteful to an
indifferent acquaintance, but which at this first meeting was very
pleasing to the father. His son was somebody,--had done something, that
son of whom he had been so thoroughly ashamed when the dealings with
Davis had first been brought to light. He had kept up his reading too;
had strong opinions of his own respecting politics; regarded the
colonies general