"Look here, old un," he said slowly, "that fellow's just knocked off eight or ten years in limbo, and don't you s'pose he prizes his liberty? If he can't keep clear o' cops and beaks after _his_ experience, he ain't no son of mine. Don't you worry about our Franzy; he's got more brains than you an' me put together. I'm blest if I know how he come by such a stock. I'm beginning to take pride in the lad." "Well," rejoins Mamma viciously, "he ain't much like _you_; if he was, there wouldn't be so much to be proud of." "That's a fact," assented Papa cheerfully. "He ain't like me; he sort o' generally resembles both of us. And I'm blest if he ain't better lookin' than we two together." "Franzy's changed," sighs Mamma; "he ain't the same boy he uste to be. If it wa'n't fer his drinkin' and swearin', I wouldn't hardly know him." "Course not; nor ye didn't know him till he interduced himself. No more did I. When a feller gets sent up fer fifteen years, and spends ten out of the fifteen tryin' to contrive a way to get back to his old Pappy and Mammy, it's apt to change him some. Franzy's improved, he is. He's cut some eye-teeth. Ah, what a help he'd be, if I could only git past these snags and back to my old business!" "Yes," sighed Mamma, and then suddenly suspended her speech as a lively, and not unmusical, whistle sounded near at hand. "That's him," she said, pushing back her chair and rising. "He seems to be comin' good-natured." And she hastened to admit the Prodigal, who, if he had returned in good spirits, had not brought them all on the outside, for as he entered the room with a cheerful smirk and unsteady step, Papa murmured aside: "Our dear boy's drunk agin." Unmindful of Mamma's anxious questions concerning his whereabouts, Franzy took the chair she had just vacated, and began a survey of the table. "Beer!" he said contemptuously. "I wouldn't drink beer, not--" "Not when you have drank too much fire-water already, Franzy," supplemented Papa, with a grin, at the same time drawing the pitcher nearer to himself. "No, my boy, I wouldn't if--if I were you." Franz utters a half maudlin laugh, and turns to the old woman. "Is this all yer eatables?" he asks thickly. "Bring us somethin' else." "Yes," chimes in Papa, "Franzy's used ter first-class fare, old un; bring him something good." Mamma moves about, placing before her Prodigal the best food at hand, and presently the three are gathered about the table again, a very social family group. But by-and-by Mamma's quick ear catches a sound outside. "Some one's coming," she says in a sharp whisper. "I wonder--" She stops short and goes to a window, followed by Franz, who peers curiously over her shoulder. "It's a woman," he says, a moment later. "Hush, Franzy," says Mamma sharply. And then she goes quickly to the door. It is a woman who enters; a woman draped in black. She throws back her shrouding veil and the pure pale face of Leslie Warburton is revealed.