While he thought these heavy things, feeling weary of the road, of his life half weary, shrinking from the bustling world again to be encountered, suddenly a grand vibration thrilled his heart, and mind, and soul. From the great concave above him, melody was spreading wide, with shadowy resistless power, like the wings of angels. The noble organ was pealing forth, rolling to every nook of the building, sweeping over the heads of the people and into their hearts (with one soft passport), “Home, sweet home!” The men who had come because tired of home, the wives to give them a change of it, the maidens perhaps to get homes of their own, the children to cry to go home again;—all with one accord stood still, all listened very quietly, and said nothing at all about it. Only they were the better for it, with many a kind old memory rising, at least among the elder ones, and many a large unselfish hope making the young people look, with trust, at one another. And what did Cradock Nowell feel? His home was not a sweet one; bitter things had been done against him; bitter things he himself had done. None the less, he turned away and wept beneath a music–stand, as if his heart would never give remission to his eyes. None could see him in the dark there, only the God whose will it was, and whose will it often is, that tears should bring us home to Him. “I will arise, and go home to my father. I will cry, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and against thee.’” And so he had. Not heavily, not wilfully, not wittingly, not a hundredth part so badly as that father had sinned against him. Yet it was wrong in him not to allow the old man to recover himself, but, forgetting a sonʼs love–duty, so to leave him—hotly, hastily, with a proud defiance. Till now he had never felt, or at least confessed to himself, that wrong. Now, as generous natures do, he summed up sternly against himself, leniently against others. And then he asked, with yearning and bitter self–reproach, “Is the old man yet alive?” * * * * *