'Well, I suppose that will depend upon what we do with it, won't it?' said Horace simply.
'Well, then I don't know that I shall let them spend any of it on me,' said Fred, in an angry tone.
'Then you won't let mother be happy, though she may have more money, and not have to work for it now.'
'Now, Horace, you know it is on mother's account that I feel as I do. It was unkind and cruel of father to go away and leave her as he did for years and years, though he was making a fortune for us. I tell you that money has been bought too dearly, and for mother's sake I don't feel as though I could touch a penny of it.'
'Oh, Fred! think how unhappy she will be if you say that to her.'
'I have said it,' replied Fred bitterly. 'I wrote and told her that I hoped she would leave me to be a carpenter, and live on in the little cottage where she had worked so hard.'
'Oh, how could you—what did she say?' cried Horace, with the tears shining in his eyes.
Fred covered his face for a moment. 'She begged me to forgive my father for her sake, as though it was not for her sake I feel as I do.'
'Yes, yes, I know,' said Horace. 'But you will have to do as she says, or else we shall all be so unhappy. Oh, Fred, for mother's sake, for my sake, forgive father! for why should I lose my brother because my father has come home? I cannot help myself. I must let him help me, and if he did stay and work for this money just to prove that he was sorry for what he had done so long ago, I think we ought to forgive him, as mother has. He is ill, too, through the hardships he had to endure.'
'Oh, Horry, if only he hadn't gone away like that! To have to forgive your father, instead of looking up to him as Len Morrison does, is so bitter; and it might all have been so different if only he had kept on doing his duty and asking God to help him when things were a bit harder than usual.'