We encouraged the former alternative, and she began: "If you want to be made a fuss of, and have people lay down their lives for you, you mustn't stop at 'ome and do your duty; you must go wrong. Only you mustn't go wrong just a little bit: you must go the whole hog an' be a rank wrong 'un--kill your father or summat o' that sort--and then when you come back you'll be hugged an' kissed an' petted till it's fair sickenin'." "Gently, lass, gently!" said Farmer Goodenough; "that sounds just a trifle bitter." "I may well be bitter; you'd be bitter if you saw what I see," she replied. I endeavoured to turn the conversation and to satisfy my curiosity. "Where has your brother been, and what has he been doing all these years?" I inquired. "Oh, he tells a tale like a story-book," she replied impatiently. "I'm bound to believe him, I suppose, because whatever else he was he wasn't a liar, but it's more like a fairy tale than ought else. After he hit father an' ran away he got to Liverpool, an' worked his passage on a boat to Cape Town, an' for a long time he got more kicks than ha'pence--and serve him right, too, _I_ say. He tried first one thing an' then another, and landed up in Rhodesia at last, an' sought work from a man who employed a lot o' labour. He says he wouldn't have been taken on if the gentleman hadn't spotted him for a Yorkshireman. 'Thou'rt Yorkshir', lad?' he said; an' our Joe said: 'Aye! bred an' born.' 'Let's hear ta talk a bit o' t' owd tongue, lad,' he said; 'aw've heeard nowt on 't for twelve yeear, an' t' missis willn't hev it spokken i' t' haase.' "Well, of course, Joe entered into t' spirit of it, an' the old gentleman was delighted, an' gave him a job, an' he always had to speak broad Yorkshire unless the missis was there. It wasn't exactly a farm, but they grew fruit an' vegetables and kept poultry an' pigs an' bees an' such like, and it was just to our Joe's taste. I won't deny but what he's clever, and he was always steady an' honest. He says the old gentleman took to him an' gave him every chance, an' t' missis liked him too, because he always spoke so polite an' proper. An' then he fell in love wi' one o' t' daughters, an' they were married last year, an' by what I can make out he's a sort of a partner in t' business now. Anyway, he says it's his wife 'at brought him to see what a wrong 'un he'd been, and when he'd told 'em all t' tale nothing 'ud do but he was to come to England and make it up with his father. So he's come, an' mother blubbers over him, an' holds his 'and, an' strokes his 'air till I'm out of all patience." Farmer Goodenough looked grave, but he did not speak, so I said: "Isn't this rather unworthy of you, Jane? Your mother is naturally glad to see her boy back again, and if she had not been here you would have welcomed him just as cordially."