The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-12
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN


 Yes, mother, he will come Of
 course he will comet" and the girl
 turned her drawn and anxious young face toward the cottage door, just as if her blind mother could see the action. It is probable that the old woman di- vined the longing glance from the
 change in the girls tone, for she, too.
 half turned toward the door. It was a habit these two women had acquired
 They constantly looked toward the door for the arrival of one who never came through the long summer days, through the quiet winter evenings:
 moreover, they rarely spoke of other things, this arrival was the topic of their lives. And now the old woman's life was drawing to close, as some lives do, without its object She her
 self felt it, and her daughter knew it. There was in both of them subtle l sense of clinging. It was hard to die without touching the reward of won- drous patience. It was cruel to deprive
 the girl of this burden, for in most bur-
 dens there is a safeguard, in all a duty, and in some the greatest happiness al- lotted to human existence.
 It was no new thing, this waiting for the scapegrace son; the girl had grown up to it, for she would not know her brother should she meet him in the street. Since sight had left the old mothers eyes she had fed her heart
 upon this hope.
 He had left them eighteen years be- fore in a fit of passionate resentment against his father, whose only fault had been too great an indulgence for the son of his old age Nothing had been too good for dear Stephen-hardly
 anything had been good enough. Edu- | cated at a charity school himself the simple old clergyman held the mistak- en view that no man can be educated above his station.
 There are some people who hold this view still, but they cannot do so much longer Strikes, labor troubles and the difficulties of domestic service; so- called gentleman farmers, gentleman l shop keepers and lady milliners-above all, few colonies peopled by Universi- ty failures--will teach us in time that to educate our sons above their station is to handicap them cruelty in the race of life.
 Stephen Leach was one of the early victims to this craze. His father, hav- | ing risen by the force of his own will
 and the capabilities of his own mind from the people to the church, held as such men do, that he had only to give l, ic, n a6r fn inc h ic
 career in life. So everything-even to the old parsons sense of right and wrong--was sacrificed to the education of Stephen Leach at public school and university. Here he met and selected for his friends youths whose futures were insured, and who were only pass ing through the formula of an educa- tion so that no one could say that they were unfit for the snug government ap- pointment, living or inheritance of more substantial sort that might be waiting for them. Stephen acquired | their ways of life without possessing their advantages, and the consequence was something very nearly approach | ing to ruin for the little country recto- ry. Not having been a university man | himself the rector did not know that at Oxford or Cambridge, as in the army, one may live according to ones tastes. | Stephen Leach had expensive tastes, and he, unScrupulously traded on his l fathers ignorance. He was good-look- l ing, and had certain brilliancy of
 manner which goes down. well at the Varsity. Everything was against him, and at last the end came. At last the
 rector's eyes were opened, and when opened he usually becomes stony at the heart.
 Stephen Leach left England, and be- fore he landed in America his father | had departed on a longer journey. The | ne'er- -do-weIl had the good grace to
 send back the little sums. of money | saved by his mother in her widowhood, and gradually his letters ceased. It was known that he was in Chilli, and there was war going on there, and yet the good old ladys faith never wa vered.
 He will come. Joyce" she would
 say. he will surely come''
 And somehow it came to be an under stood thing that he was to come in the afternoon when they were all ready for
 him-when Joyce had clad her pretty young form in dark dress. and when
 the old lady was up and seated in her chair by the fire in winter, by the door in summer. They had never imagined