money-getting, for which father and son were respected.

And yet, the old man did not seem to be happy. Perhaps it was that
the consummation of his wishes left him without a practical mission;
perhaps--and it is the more probable--he had little love for the son he
had regained. The obedience he exacted was freely given, the reform he
had set his heart upon was complete; and yet, somehow, it did not
seem to please him. In reclaiming his son, he had fulfilled all the
requirements that his religious duty required of him, and yet the act
seemed to lack sanctification. In this perplexity, he read again the
parable of the Prodigal Son,--which he had long ago adopted for
his guidance,--and found that he had omitted the final feast
of reconciliation. This seemed to offer the proper quality of
ceremoniousness in the sacrament between himself and his son; and so, a
year after the appearance of Charles, he set about giving him a party.
"Invite everybody, Char-les," he said, dryly; "everybody who knows that
I brought you out of the wine-husks of iniquity, and the company of
harlots; and bid them eat, drink, and be merry."

Perhaps the old man had another reason, not yet clearly analyzed. The
fine house he had built on the sand-hills sometimes seemed lonely and
bare. He often found himself trying to reconstruct, from the grave
features of Charles, the little boy whom he but dimly remembered in the
past, and of whom lately he had been thinking a great deal. He believed
this to be a sign of impending old age and childishness; but coming, one
day, in his formal drawing-room, upon a child of one of the servants,
who had strayed therein, he would have taken him in his arms, but the
child fled from before his grizzled face. So that it seemed eminently
proper to invite a number of people to his house, and, from the array
of San Francisco maidenhood, to select a daughter-in-law. And then there