The parable of the Prodigal Son has long been justly regarded as a model of terse and compact narrative; but modern commentators of the analytical sort have a quarrel with the abruptness of its ending. They would have liked to learn what the good stay-at-home son said and did after his father had for a second time explained the situation to him. Did he, at least outwardly, agree that “it was meet that we should make merry and be glad”? And if he consented to go into the house, and even to eat some of the fatted calf, did he do it with a fine, large, hearty pretence of being glad? Did he deceive the returned Prodigal, for example, into believing in the fraternal welcome? Or did he lie in wait, and, when occasion offered, quietly, and with a polite smile, rub gall and vinegar into the wayfarer’s wounds? Alas, this we can only guess. Poor Ben Lawton had been left in no doubt as to the attitude of his family toward the prodigal daughter. A sharp note of dissent had been raised at the outset, on the receipt of her letter--a note so shrill and strenuous that for the moment it almost scared him into begging her not to come. Then his better nature asserted itself, and he contrived to mollify somewhat the wrath of his wife and daughters by inventing a tortuous system of lies about Jessica’s intentions and affairs. He first established the fiction that she meant only to pay them a flying visit. Upon this he built a rambling edifice of falsehood as to her financial prosperity, and her desire to do a good deal toward helping the family. Lastly, as a crowning superstructure of deception, he fabricated a theory that she was to bring with her a lot of trunks filled with costly and beautiful dresses, with citified bonnets and parasols and high-heeled shoes, beyond belief--all to be distributed among her sisters. Once well started, he lied so luxuriantly and with such a flowing fancy about these things, that his daughters came to partially believe him--him whom they had not believed before since they could remember--and prepared themselves to be civil to their half-sister. There were five of these girls--the offspring of a second marriage Lawton contracted a year or so after the death of baby Jessica’s mother. The eldest, Melissa, was now about twenty, and worked out at the Fairchild farm-house some four miles from Thessaly--a dull, discontented young woman, with a heavy yet furtive face and a latent snarl in her voice. Lucinda was two years younger, and toiled in the Scotch-cap factory in the village. She also was a commonplace girl, less obviously bad-tempered than Melissa, but scarcely more engaging in manner. Next in point of age was Samantha, who deserves some notice by herself, and after her came the twins, Georgiana and Arabella, two overgrown, coarse, giggling hoydens of fifteen, who obtained intermittent employment in the button factory.