Do you know what I mean ?" "I suppose I do," Mrs.Costello answered slowly.

"You mean that when we take him back, we should not seem to be ashamed of him ?" Lucia hid her face against her mother's dress.
"Oh! mamma, is it wrong to talk so?
He is my father after all, and it seems so dreadful; but indeed I shall try to behave like a daughter to him." Yet even as she spoke, an irrepressible shudder crept over her with the sudden recollection of the only time she had seen the prodigal.
"My poor child!" and her mother's arm was passed tenderly round her, "it is just that I wish to spare you." Lucia looked up steadily.
"But ought I to be spared, mother?
It seems to me that my duty is just as plain as yours.

Do not ask me to go away." "I am half distracted, darling, between trying to think for you and for him.

And perhaps all my thought for him may be useless." "At least, think only of him for the present." "If he should die before the trial ?" "If he could only be cleared! Perhaps it would save him yet." "Yes.

It seems to be imprisonment which is killing him; but nothing less than a miracle could make any change now, and there are no miracles in our days." "Ah! mamma, has not a miracle been worked already ?" "How ?" "Only a little while ago remember how we thought and spoke of him--and now--" "You are right, my child; but the agencies which have worked this miracle are very earthly ones--pain and sorrow, and false accusation." "Mamma, I think this is better than the old life of terror, and perhaps hatred." "Far better, far better.