“A dream, sir, truly!  Directly the bird was fledged, he took to flight, and remembers neither father nor mother.  Yesterday, for instance, was the day we expected him; he should have come to supper with us.  No Robert to-day, either!  He has had some plan to finish, or some bargain to arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after the customers and the joiner’s work.  Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out!  Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son!  Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood?  The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself.  Oh! if I had to begin again!  No, no! you see women and children are our bane.  They soften our hearts; they lead us a life of hope and affection; we pass a quarter of our lives in fostering the growth of a grain of corn which is to be everything to us in our old age, and when the harvest-time comes—­good-night, the ear is empty!”

While he was speaking, Michael’s voice became hoarse, his eyes fierce, and his lips quivered.  I wished to answer him, but I could only think of commonplace consolations, and I remained silent.  The joiner pretended he needed a tool, and left me.

Poor father!  Ah!  I know those moments of temptation when virtue has failed to reward us, and we regret having obeyed her!  Who has not felt this weakness in hours of trial, and who has not uttered, at least once, the mournful exclamation of Brutus?

But if virtue is only a word, what is there then in life that is true and real?  No, I will not believe that goodness is in vain!  It does not always give the happiness we had hoped for, but it brings some other.  In the world everything is ruled by order, and has its proper and necessary consequences, and virtue cannot be the sole exception to the general law.  If it had been prejudicial to those who practised it, experience would have avenged them; but experience has, on the contrary, made it more universal and more holy.  We only accuse it of being a faithless debtor because we demand an immediate payment, and one apparent to our senses.  We always consider life as a fairytale, in which every good action must be rewarded by a visible wonder.  We do not accept as payment a peaceful conscience, self-content, or a good name among men—­treasures that are more precious than any other, but the value of which we do not feel till after we have lost them!

Michael is come back, and has returned to his work.  His son has not yet arrived.