h which makes me sure that he is still alive, and will
some day come back to us again."

"No!" It was my father's voice I heard, coming sternly from where he
sat upright in his chair. "He will not come back here. He left this
house of his own free will, left it in treachery and deceit. He has
cast its dust from off his feet, and this is his home no more."

My heart sank within me at these bitter words. But Patience pleaded
for me still.

"Ah, but he will return, I know he will, and if he does you will
forgive him, won't you, Mr. Ford? After all he was but a boy when he
ran away, too young to know what he was doing. How can we tell what
suffering he has gone through since, how often he has repented of what
he did, and longed to come back and be forgiven."

Mr. Peter Walpole gave a groan.

"It is I was to blame, as much as the boy, come, brother Ford.
Remember how I held out for that premium with him. Not but what the
sum I named was just, mind you; but I loved the lad and would have
taken him without a premium at all, rather than he should have gone
wandering about the world, to be murdered by heathen men and
cannibals."

I cannot express how surprised and touched I was to hear Mr. Walpole
speak thus of me. For I had ever regarded him as a cold, hard man,
with no affections beyond money and religion. I looked anxiously for
my father's reply.

"Nay, you were in no wise to blame, if you considered that what you
asked was your right, though to my mind it savoured of extortion. It
is my unhappy son whom I cannot excuse. Had he but come to me, and
told me what was in his heart, it would have gone hard but I would
have provided for him in some honest career. But to let himself be
enticed away by pirates, as there is little doubt they were, and to
dissemble his flight with falsehood, that was unworthy of a son of
mine, and cannot be atoned for."

He gave a glance, half angry, half questioning, at my mother, as he
concluded. I did the same, but was surprised to observe that her face
was returned to its former placid composure, and she seemed not to
heed my father's stern expressions.

Poor little Patience took them more to heart, and the tears shone in
her eyes.

"Don't say you won't forgive him!" she implored. "Think, for aught we
know he may now be pining in a Moorish dungeon, or lying wounded on
the battle-field. Oh, Mr. Ford, he was your only son, and you loved
him--you must love him still!"

"Silence, girl!"