“I wish that father would come home,” said Robin to himself. “But he did not expect to have me back so soon, with the appetite of half-a-dozen jackals. Father had ordered nothing for himself but dál [a kind of dried pease] and chapatties [flat baked cakes of flour]; but I wanted better fare. As soon as I arrived I pronounced the death-warrant on the fattest hen in the compound, so there will be something fit for dinner.” Robin resumed his work, still soliloquizing. “Dear father is not fit to have charge of his own comfort; he is always thinking about people’s souls, and has little regard for bodies. Harold and I had agreed together never to leave him without a son beside him, for thirty years of hard work are telling upon him; but how could we help being absent on such an occasion as this? Father himself would not hear of my not attending Harold’s wedding, and Harold—” Robin interrupted himself in the midst of his sentence with the exclamation, “Here’s father at last!” Mr. Hartley was coming along the cactus-bordered way, a heavy bag in one hand, an open umbrella held up by the other, and a thick hat made of pith on his head. The missionary was pale, thin, and somewhat bent, with many a line on his face; but his mild countenance lighted up with pleasure as he caught sight of his son. Robin flung down his mattock, and bounding forward the youth greeted his parent with a most unconventional hug, which was as warmly though more quietly returned. Robin’s impetuous affection was more that of the child than that of a youth with down on his lip. It had often been said that Robin, with his rough curly head, his joyous spirit, and his absolute freedom from guile, would never, should he live to a patriarch’s age, be anything more than a boy.