148 UNOPENED PARCELS.

few minutes afterwards. “ What did his mother
say when he told her ?”

“Oh, haven’t I mentioned that?” cried my
father. “She said, ‘I have suspected as much for
years. Now I know it. Kiss me, my darling.’”

‘Then she was not angry a bit, papa ?”

“How could she be, with such a son, Honor?
That he was what he was, was enough for her—is
always enough for a parent. Out of which fact
comes the ‘larger hope,’ that such love is but the
adumbration of the love and mercy of the Father
in heaven.”