"Dear Lord, make dad like the father that had compassion."
Dina's own heart was so full, and her eyes so brimming over, that she could neither read further nor see. Covering her face with her hands, she shook with sobs.
"Why, child, what is it?" inquired Mr. Ellis in unusually tender tones. "Tell me, Geraldine?"
Dina, with a great effort, mastered her emotion.
She must speak now, and she realised how much might depend upon her words.
"Dad," she said, in a little broken, pathetic voice, "when that poor naughty son who had been to the bad—came home and found his father so kind, and tender, and forgiving, that would help to keep him, wouldn't it, from going wrong again?"
"I should think it might," replied Mr. Ellis, surprised at the question, and still more at the earnest way in which it was put.
But he was fairly startled when Dina threw herself on her knees by the bedside, and clasping her father's hand between both hers, said, "Oh, dad, the prodigal that went to the bad, and came to grief, and was tired, and starved, and sick, and so very, very sorry for being naughty, has come home. Oh, dad, dear dad, will the father forgive him and give him a welcome, and help him to be good? Dad, tell me quick, for my heart's breaking. Will he say, 'This my son was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found'?"
The child ceased speaking, but her heart was one fervent prayer during the silence that followed, broken at last by a husky voice, very unlike Mr. Ellis's usual sharp tones:
"You wish this very much, Geraldine?"