“I don’t think you need tell me any more of his misdoings,” said Sir Edward, drily.

“But, you see, he had to get very bad before he got good, because he was a prodigal son.  And he is sorry now.  He said he never, never would have come home until he was a good man, only one day he listened to a man preaching a sermon in the middle of a street on a Sunday night, and he felt uncomfortable, and then he was spoken to after by—­now guess, uncle, who do you think?”

Sir Edward could not guess, so Milly went on triumphantly:  “Why, it was my Jack, and he began to talk to him, and told him he was like him once, and he said he was looking out for a Tommy Maxwell.  Now wasn’t that wonderful, when it was Tommy himself he spoke to!  Well, Tommy said he hadn’t the face to go home till he was better, but Jack told him not to wait a day longer, for his father and mother were waiting for him; but the strange thing was that even then Tommy waited a whole two weeks before he made up his mind to come.  Now don’t you think he was foolish, uncle?”

“Very foolish.”

“I couldn’t quite understand it, but nurse says there are lots of people like that, waiting to make themselves better, instead of running home just as they are.  She says some of God’s prodigal sons do that; do you think many do, uncle?”

“I daresay.”

“And Tommy said, though he wanted to see his home again dreadfully, he had a great fight with himself to come at all.  I didn’t know prodigal sons found it so difficult—­the one in the Bible didn’t, not when he once made up his mind.  Well, and so Tommy got out at the station—­I’m sorry he came by train, but Jack’s uncle paid for his ticket—­I would rather he had run the whole way.”

“Why would you?” asked Sir Edward, with a smile.

“I think it would have been more proper if he had,” said the child slowly, her head a little on one side, as she gazed thoughtfully into the fire.  “I always run or walk the whole way when I play the prodigal son.  I begin rather slowly, because it looks a long way off, but when I come near I hurry.  I’m wanting to be there when I see my home.  The prodigal son didn’t have a train in the Bible, and I think Tommy might have tried to do without it.”

The tone of reproach at the end of her speech was too much for her uncle’s gravity, and he laughed aloud.

“I am afraid Tommy has sadly disappointed you.  Did he take a cab from the station?”

“No, he didn’t do that.  He got home in the afternoon, and Maxwell was cleaning his gun on the doorstep, when he saw a shadow, and he looked up and there he was!  Oh!  I should like to have been there, but I’m sorry to say Maxwell didn’t fall on his neck and kiss him.  I asked Tommy very carefully about it, and he said he took hold of both his hands and squeezed them tight, and he gave a shout, and Mrs. Maxwell was doing her washing in the back yard, and she heard it, and she