“Why?”

“Because I would know for certain He would meet me and take me back.  Nurse told me she had a cousin who ran away and made himself a soldier, and when he was sorry and wanted to come home, his father shut the door in his face, and wouldn’t let him in.  And then there’s Tommy, I can’t help s’posing that his father mightn’t know him.  But God can’t make mistakes.  It must be lovely just to run right into God’s arms, and hear Him saying, ’Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.’ I should love to have Him say that to me.”

Milly’s little face glowed with pleasure at the thought, and she turned her expressive eyes toward her uncle, who lay with knitted brows listening to her.

“And supposing if God would not receive you; supposing you had stayed away so long, and had refused to listen to His voice when He called, and then when you did want to come back, you felt it would be too late, what would you do then?”

Milly smiled.

“Why, uncle, it would be never too late for God, would it?  Maxwell said he would be glad to see Tommy if he came back in the middle of the night, and God would never turn one of his prodigal sons away.  He loves them so that he sent Jesus to die for them.  He would never say He couldn’t have them back again.”

Sir Edward said no more, and after another pause the child went on.

“I was asking Mrs. Maxwell the other day if she had some best clothes for Tommy when he came home, and she took me upstairs into his little room, and opened a long drawer, and told me to look inside.  And there were his best Sunday coat and waistcoat and trousers, and a silk handkerchief with lavender in it, and a necktie with yellow and red stripes, and she told me they had been there for nine years, and she shakes them out and brushes them every Saturday.  He didn’t run away in his best clothes, you know; he left them behind.  So they’re quite ready for him.  The only thing Mrs. Maxwell hasn’t got is the ring.”

“The what?” inquired Sir Edward, amused.

“The ring,” Milly repeated earnestly.  “Maxwell will have to say, ’Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.’  Mrs. Maxwell has got a pair of carpet slippers.  I couldn’t bear her not having any shoes ready for him, so we looked about and found a pair that are just too small for Maxwell, and I put them in the drawer my own self.  Mrs. Maxwell says he won’t want a ring, and that she thinks the Bible people dressed differently, and she said Tommy was a poor man’s son:  it wasn’t as if he was rich.  But I don’t know; I don’t like to think we have no ring for him.  I suppose you haven’t one, uncle, that you would like to give him?”

Sir Edward put his head back on his cushions and laughed aloud.  Then, noting Milly’s troubled face, he said: 

“Wait till Tommy comes back, little woman, and then it will be time enough to see about his ring, though I quite agree with his mother that it would be most unfitting.”