“I fear you don’t guess quite correctly. It was the best friend you ever had or ever will have. It was God himself talking in my poor boy’s heart. He would not heed what he said all day, but in the evening we were reading how the prodigal son went back to his father, and how the father forgave him; and he couldn’t stand it any longer, and came and told me all about it.” “It wasn’t you he had to go to. It wasn’t you he smoked to death--was it now? It was easy enough to go to you.” “Not so easy perhaps. But he has come to you now.” “Come when you made him!” “I didn’t make him. He came gladly. He saw it was all he could do to make up for the wrong he had done.” “A poor amends!” I heard her grumble; but my father took no notice. “And you know, Mrs. Gregson,” he went on, “when the prodigal son did go back to his father, his father forgave him at once.” “Easy enough! He was his father, and fathers always side with their sons.” I saw my father thinking for a moment. “Yes; that is true,” he said. “And what he does himself, he always wants his sons and daughters to do. So he tells us that if we don’t forgive one another, he will not forgive us. And as we all want to be forgiven, we had better mind what we’re told. If you don’t forgive this boy, who has done you a great wrong, but is sorry for it, God will not forgive you--and that’s a serious affair.” “He’s never begged my pardon yet,” said the old woman, whose dignity required the utter humiliation of the offender. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gregson,” I said. “I shall never be rude to you again.” “Very well,” she answered, a little mollified at last. “Keep your promise, and we’ll say no more about it. It’s for your father’s sake, mind, that I forgive you.” I saw a smile trembling about my father’s lips, but he suppressed it, saying, “Won’t you shake hands with him, Mrs. Gregson?” She held out a poor shrivelled hand, which I took very gladly; but it felt so strange in mine that I was frightened at it: it was like something half dead. But at the same moment, from behind me another hand, a rough little hand, but warm and firm and all alive, slipped into my left hand. I knew it was Elsie Duff’s, and the thought of how I had behaved to her rushed in upon me with a cold misery of shame. I would have knelt at her feet, but I could not speak my sorrow before witnesses. Therefore I kept hold of her hand and led her by it to the other end of the cottage, for there was a friendly gloom, the only light in the place coming from the glow--not flame--of a fire of peat and bark. She came readily, whispering before I had time to open my mouth-- I’m sorry grannie’s so hard to make it up.” “I deserve it,” I said. “Elsie, I’m a brute. I could knock my head on the wall. Please forgive me.” “It’s not me,” she answered. “You didn’t hurt me. I didn’t mind it.” “Oh, Elsie! I struck you with that horrid snowball.” “It was only on the back of my neck. It didn’t hurt me much. It only frightened me.”