"Shall I read your mother's favorite chapter?" said Patty.
"How do you know which that is?—I don't!"
"Don't you think one woman knows how another woman feels?" asked Patty. And she sat by the little four-light window and took out her pocket Testament and read the three immortal parables in the fifteenth of Luke. The man's curiosity was now wide awake; he listened to the story of the sheep lost and found, but when Patty glanced at his face, it was unsatisfied; he hearkened to the story of the coin that was lost and found, and still he looked at her with faint eagerness, as if trying to guess why she should call that his mother's favorite chapter. Then she read slowly, and with sincere emotion, that truest of fictions, the tale of the prodigal son and his hunger, and his good resolution, and his tattered return, and the old father's joy. And when she looked up, his eyes tightly closed could not hide his tears.
"Do you think that is her favorite chapter?" he asked.
"Of course it must be," said Patty, conclusively. "And you'll notice that this prodigal son didn't wait to make himself better, or even until he could get a new suit of clothes."
The sick man said nothing.
The raw-boned Mrs. Barkins came to the door at that moment and said:
"The doctor's gal's out yer and want's to see you."
"You won't go away yet?" asked the patient, anxiously.
"I'll stay," said Patty, as she left the room.