eated his question.

"Please, sir, Toby brought it to me."

"What, is Toby your dog?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you so hungry as to eat dog's meat?"

"I have not had nothing before to-day, sir."

"Why, where do you live? hereabouts?"

"Oh, no, sir; I lived with grandmother up in Cheshire, but she is dead
now, and father is just come home from sea, and he wrote down I was to
be sent to him at Portsmouth, to go to sea with him."

"How do you live? do you beg your way?"

"No, sir; father sent up a pound in a letter, only Nanny Brooks said I
owed some to her for my victuals, and I have not much of it left, and
bread comes dear, so when Toby brought me this bit of meat I was glad of
it, sir, but I would not have taken it--"

The boy was desired to wait while the brother and sister, in breathless
excitement, rushed back with their story.

Mrs. Wilmot was at first inclined to fear that the naval part of it had
been inspired by Harry's uniform, but the examination of Jem Jennings
put it beyond a doubt that he spoke nothing but the truth; and the
choicest delight of the feast was the establishing him and Toby behind
the barrow, and feeding them with such viands as they had probably never
seen before.

The boy could not read writing, but he had his father's letter in his
pocket, and Mary capered at the delightful coincidence, on finding that
Jem Jennings was actually a quarter-master on board the Alcestis. It
gave a sort of property in the boy, and she almost grudged Meta the
having been first to say that she would pay for the rest of his journey,
instead of doing it by subscription.

However, Mary had a consolation, she would offer to take charge of Toby,
who, as Harry observed, would otherwise have been drowned--he could not
be taken on board. To be sure, he was a particularly ugly animal, rough,
grisly, short-legged, long-backed, and with an apology for a tail--but
he had a redeeming pair of eyes, and he and Jem lived on terms of such
close friendship, that he would have been miserable in leaving him to
the mercy of Nanny Brooks.

So, after their meal, Jem and Toby were bidden to wait for Dr. May's
coming, and fell asleep together on the green bank, while the rest
either sketched, or wandered, or botanised. Flora acted the grown-up
lady with Mrs. Wilmot, and Meta found herself sitting by Ethel, asking
her a great many questions about Margaret, and her home, and what it
could be like to be one of such a numerous fami