I stood it ill, thinking it hard, that she should have made choice of that reproachful parable. I stared sideways out at the stream and the ships, but lost no word, as, with a voice that broke now and then, she read the parable to its close. After this should have come prayer, silent or spoken; but, to my surprise, she said, “We will not pray this morning,” and we went in to breakfast at once. As for me, I could not eat. I went out alone to the garden and sat down. I knew she would come to me soon. It seemed to me a long while. I sat on the grass against a tree, an old cherry, as I remember, and waited. I can see her coming toward me under the trees, grave and quiet and sweet. The great beauty, Sarah Lukens, who married in mid-war the gallant Lennox, used to say of my mother that she put some sugar into all her moods; and it was true. I have seen her angry. I had rather have faced my father in his wildest rage than her. Why was she not angry now? She had vast reason for displeasure. After men have become wise enough to understand woman, I protest there will remain the mother, whom no man will ever comprehend. “What a beautiful day, Hugh! And you had a good swim? was it cold f Why may not girls swim? I should love it.” Next she was beside me on the grass, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she had done some wrong thing: “I-I did not choose it, dear; indeed I did not. It came in order with the day, as your father reads; and I--I did not think until I began it, and then I would not stop. It is strange for it to so chance. I wonder where that prodigal’s mother was all the while? Oh, you are better than that wicked, wicked prodigal. I never would have let him go at all--never if I could have helped it, I mean. _Mon Dieu!_ I think we women were made only for prayer or for forgiveness; we can stop no sin, and when it is done can only cry, ‘Come back! come back! I love you!’” If I cried on that tender heart, and spoke no word, and was but a child again, I am sure that it was of all ways the best to tell her that never again should she be hurt by any act of mine. “See, there is Judith at the door, wondering where I am,” she said, “and what is to be for dinner. I must go and get ready the fatted calf. Ah, I would not have left one alive. Yes, yes, I can jest, because I am no more afraid, _mon fils_, nor ever shall be.” Upon this I would have said something of my deep shame, and of the swine among whom I had wallowed. “No,” she cried; “_c’est fini, mon cher_. It is all over. The swine will eat alone hereafter.” She would hear no more, only adding, “As for me, I want to be told once how brave I was. Jack said so; indeed he did. I _was_ brave, was I not?” “Don’t, dear mother! please! I cannot bear it.” Somehow this plea, so childlike, to be praised for what must have cost so much, quite overcame me.