The Prodigal Son. Hall Sir Caine

It told him how happy he had been when he thought Thora loved him; how he had left her for the mountains with his heart full of joy; how Oscar had come and everything was at an end.

      "Keep it back! Return his own!" said the voice in his ear; and to make sure of Thora's happiness and to cure himself of all hope, he took Thora's letter out of his pocket and ran with it in his hand.

      Oscar was at the top of the stairs, being too eager to wait in his bedroom. "So you have brought it! She has sent me an answer! Give it me!"

      "Take it," said Magnus.

      But having Thora's letter in his hands at last Oscar was afraid to open it. "Is it all right?" he asked.

      "See for yourself," said Magnus, and he dropped into the seat by the desk.

      As Oscar read the letter the expression of his face changed from fear to joy, and from joy to rapture. Without looking up from the paper he cried out like a happy boy, "It's all right! She agrees! God bless her! Shall I read you what she says? Yet, no! That wouldn't be fair to Thora! But it's as right as can be! How beautiful! Talk of education--nobody in the world could have put things better! The darling!"

      He read the letter twice and put it in his pocket; then took it out and read it again and kissed it, forgetting in his selfish happiness that anybody else was there.

      Magnus sat and watched him. The fight was almost over, but he was nearly breaking down at last.

      "What an age you seemed to be away!" said Oscar. "Yet you have run hard, for you are still quite breathless. But there is nothing more to do now except what you promised to do to-morrow. You think you can do it?"

      "I think I can," said Magnus.

      "It will be a stiff job, though. To persuade two old men who don't wish to be persuaded! Nobody wants to see his schemes upset and his contracts broken, and with all the good-will in the world to me----"

      "Wait!" said Magnus, rising--his unshaven, face had suddenly grown hard and ugly. "We have talked of you and Thora, and of the Factor and the Governor, but there is somebody who has not been too much mentioned--myself!"

      "Don't suppose I am forgetting you, though," said Oscar. "I can never do that--and neither can Thora--never!"

      "If I am to stand back, and take the consequences, there is something you owe me--you owe me your silence!"

      "Assuredly," said Oscar.

      "Whatever I do or say to-morrow," said Magnus, "you must never allow it to be seen that you know my object. Is it a promise?"

      "Certainly!" said Oscar. "Silence is inevitable if I am to save Thora from her father's anger, and I will save her from that and from every sorrow."

      Magnus walked to the door, and then, for the first time, Oscar looked at him.

      "But what a brute I am--always talking of myself!" said Oscar, following his brother to the landing. "When everything is satisfactorily settled, what is to happen to you, Magnus?"

      "God knows!" said Magnus, with his foot on the stair. "Everybody has his own wounds to bandage."

      "Well, God bless you in any case, old fellow!" said Oscar, patting Magnus on the shoulder. And then he returned to his room and took out Thora's letter and read it over again.

      X

      The betrothal was fixed for five o'clock on the following afternoon. Aunt Margret had had women in to clean the house down, and everything was like a new pin. The large sitting-room, looking toward the town, was prepared for the legal part of the ceremony, with pens and ink on the round table, and the smaller sitting-room, divided from it by a plush curtain and overlooking the lake, was laid out with a long dining table, covered with cakes and cups and saucers and surrounded by high-backed chairs.

      These rooms were standing quiet and solemn when at half-past four Aunt Margret came down in her best black silk and with ringlets newly curled, to have a last look round. She was doing a little final dusting when the first of her guests arrived. This was Anna, also in black silk, and, being already on her company manners, Aunt Margret kissed her.

      "But where's Oscar, and where's the Governor?" asked Aunt Margret.

      "Stephen is coming," said Anna, "but far be it from me to say where Oscar is! The boy is here and there and everywhere."

      "That reminds me of something," said Aunt Margret. "Can you tell me how it came to pass that the young folks missed each other at Thingvellir yesterday, and Magnus came home alone?"

      "Goodness knows! It wouldn't be Magnus's fault, that's certain. Magnus is like my poor father--as sure to be in his place as a mill-horse on the tread, but Oscar is as hard to hold as a puff of wind. It's his nature, he can't help it, but it makes me anxious when I think of it, Margret."

      "Don't be afraid for Oscar, Anna! He'll come out all right. And if he is restless and unsettled, God is good to such, weak heart. He never asks more than He gives, you know."

      The Factor came downstairs--a tall man, clean-shaven, bald-headed, and a little hard and angular, wearing evening dress and a skull-cap, and carrying a long German pipe in his hand.

      "No smoking yet!" cried Aunt Margret, and with a grunt and a laugh the Factor laid his pipe on the mantel-piece.

      "And how's Anna to-day?" he said. "No need to ask that though, our Anna is as fresh and young as ever. Upon my word, Margret, it only seems like yesterday that we were doing all this for Anna herself."

      "She was a different Anna in those days, Oscar," said Anna.

      "Not a bit of it! There's a little more Anna now--that's the only difference."

      The Governor came in next--a broad-set man of medium height, with a beard but no mustache, and wearing his official uniform, bright with gold braid. He saluted the Factor and said:

      "I have taken the liberty to ask the Bishop, the Rector of the Latin School, and the Sheriff to join us--I trust you don't object?"

      "Quite right, old friend," said the Factor. "The most important acts of life ought always to be done in the presence of witnesses."

      "And how's Margret? As busy as usual, I see! All days don't come on the same date; we must get ready for you next, you know!"

      "For Margret!" laughed the Factor. "She'll have to be quick, or she'll be late then--people don't hatch many chickens at Christmas."

      "Late, indeed!" said Aunt Margret, with a toss of her ringlets. "If I couldn't catch up to you folks with your pair of chicks apiece, I shouldn't think it worth while to begin."

      The men laughed, and Anna said, "Well, two children would be enough for me if I could only keep them. But that's the worst of having boys--they marry and leave you. A mother can always keep her girls----"

      "Until somebody else's boys come and carry them off, and then she sees no more of either," said Aunt Margret.

      "That depends on circumstances," said the Governor--"the marriage contract, for example--eh, old friend?"

      "Exactly!" said the Factor. "You can generally keep the bull about the place if you have the cow locked up in the cow-house."

      The men laughed again, and then the Bishop and the Rector arrived--the Bishop a saintly patriarch with a soft face and a white beard, and the Rector--as became the schoolmaster--sharper, if not more severe.

      "I was surprised when I heard it was Magnus," said the Rector. "Oscar has beaten his brother in most things, and I thought he would beat him in getting a wife. And then Thora and he are such friends, too, and so like each other!"

      "They get on worst together who are most like each other," said Anna; and Aunt Margret said:

      "Stuff! A dark man's a jewel in a fair woman's eye, and what does Thora want with a fair one?"

      "But where is Thora?" asked the Bishop.

      "She's dressing," said Aunt Margret. "Let us go and fetch her down, Anna," and the two women went