Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/25

 his, who would have worked her hands to the bone forhim. And that is your work. You were weak with him. Weak as you are with the other children, as you are with the servants and with your parishioners. You are spoken of as that easy-going, tolerant Mr. Eaton, you who would always rather procrastinate, temporize and beat about the bush than face a duty which seems in any way unpleasant to you. You who have been known to side with your own children in their occasional rebellions against what is known the world over to be best for children. You who let them pull you and maul you and romp with you, as if you had no respect for your cloth, and the eyes of Him Who sees all were not upon you. So that "now your son, profiting by the example you have set him, fails in the face of duty, turns tail and Tuns away. What have you to say? What are you going to do?"

"Try to find him," said Mr. Eaton simply.

"You had better find him," said Mrs. Eaton ominously; "you had better find him, Mr. Eaton. And when you have found him you had better talk to him, for once in your life, as a priest and a father ought to talk to a sinful and erring son. There institutions for the wayward and incorrigible; let us hope that no one of our children, owing to bad example, shall ever live to see the inside of