, and full of the spirit of
adventure, as behooved a boy cast on the winds. So far as that goes, his
foster-parents would rather have found him more steady and less comely,
for if he was to step into their lost son's shoes, he might do it
without seeming to outshine him. But they got over that little jealousy
in time, when the boy began to be useful, and, so far as was possible,
they kept him under by quoting against him the character of Bob,
bringing it back from heaven of a much higher quality than ever it was
upon the earth. In vain did this living child aspire to such level; how
can an earthly boy compare with one who never did a wrong thing, as soon
as he was dead?

Passing that difficult question, and forbearing to compare a boy with
angels, be he what he will, his first need (after that of victuals) is a
name whereby his fellow-boys may know him. Is he to be shouted at with,
"Come here, what's your name?" or is he to be called (as if in high
rebuke), "Boy?" And yet there are grown-up folk who do all this without
hesitation, failing to remember their own predicament at a by-gone
period. Boys are as useful, in their way, as any other order; and if
they can be said to do some mischief, they can not be said to do it
negligently. It is their privilege and duty to be truly active; and
their Maker, having spread a dull world before them, has provided them
with gifts of play while their joints are supple.

The present boy, having been born without a father or a mother (so far
as could yet be discovered), was driven to do what our ancestors must
have done when it was less needful. That is to say, to work his own name
out by some distinctive process. When the parson had clearly shown him
not to be a Frenchman, a large contumely spread itself about, by reason
of his gold, and eyes, and hair, and name (which might be meant for
Isaak), that he was sprung from a race more honored now than a hundred
years ago. But the women declared that it could not be; and the rector
desiring to christen him, because it might never have been done before,
refused point-blank to put any "Isaac" in, and was satisfied with
"Robin" only, the name of the man who had saved him.

The rector showed deep knowledge of his flock, which looked upon Jews
as the goats of the Kingdom; for any Jew must die for a world of
generations ere ever a Christian thinks much of him. But finding him not
to be a Jew, the other boys, instead of being satisfied, condemne