father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields
where he had wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and
first kissed the young girl he loved--poor child--who had waited for him
so faithfully and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want
and meek expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief
fruition.

Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom's absence after his
return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that night
read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.

This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out again
between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineering mother-in-law. It was
not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more stern than other ladies,
but the two could not agree. The boy sulked and was miserable at home. He
fell to drinking with the grooms in the stables. I think he went to Epsom
races, and was discovered after that act of rebellion. Driving from a
most interesting breakfast at Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew
convert had spoken, oh! so graciously!), Mrs. Newcome--in her
state-carriage, with her bay horses--met Tom, her son-in-law, in a
tax-cart, excited by drink, and accompanied by all sorts of friends, male
and female. John the black man was bidden to descend from the carriage
and bring him to Mrs. Newcome. He came; his voice was thick with drink.
He laughed wildly: he described a fight at which he had been present. It
was not possible that such a castaway as this should continue in a house
where her two little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace.

The boy had a great fancy for India; and Orme's History, containing the
exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite book of all in his
father's library. Being offered a writership, he scouted the idea of a