quite. It was a friend of yours that spoke to
my boy and made him very unhappy about what he had done, telling him
over and over again what a shame it was, and how wicked of him. Do you
know what friend it was?"

"Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I can guess."

"I fear you don't guess quite correctly. It was the best friend you
ever had or ever will have. It was God himself talking in my poor
boy's heart. He would not heed what he said all day, but in the
evening we were reading how the prodigal son went back to his father,
and how the father forgave him; and he couldn't stand it any longer,
and came and told me all about it."

"It wasn't you he had to go to. It wasn't you he smoked to death--was
it now? It was easy enough to go to you."

"Not so easy perhaps. But he has come to you now."

"Come when you made him!"

"I didn't make him. He came gladly. He saw it was all he could do to
make up for the wrong he had done."

"A poor amends!" I heard her grumble; but my father took no notice.

"And you know, Mrs. Gregson," he went on, "when the prodigal son did
go back to his father, his father forgave him at once."

"Easy enough! He was his father, and fathers always side with their
sons."

I saw my father thinking for a moment.

"Yes; that is true," he said. "And what he does himself, he always
wants his sons and daughters to do. So he tells us that if we don't
forgive one another, he will not forgive us. And as we all want to be
forgiven, we had better mind what we're told. If you don't forgive
this boy, who has done you a great wrong, but is sorry for it, God
will not forgive you--and that's a serious affair."

"He's never begged my pardon yet," said the old woman, whose dignity
required the utter humiliation of the offender.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gregson," I said. "I shall never be rude to
you again."

"Very well," she answered, a little mollified at last.

"Keep your promise, and we'll say no more about it. It's for your
father's sake, mind, that I forgive you."

I saw a smile trembling about my father's lips, but he suppressed it,
saying,

"Won't you shake hands with him, Mrs. Gregson?"

She held out a poor shrivelled hand, which I took very gladly; but it
felt so strange in mine that I was frightened at it: it was like
something half dead. But at the same moment, from behind me another
hand, a rough little hand, but warm and firm and all alive, slipped
into my left hand. I knew it was El