o comfort me."

"Oh! mother, darling mother," cried Hetty, "do promise me that you will
give it up. I won't get ill or leave you again--God helping me; but it
will kill me if you go on. _Do_ promise."

"It's of no use, Hetty. Of course I can easily promise, but I can't
keep my promise. I _know_ I can't."

Hetty knew this to be too true. Without the grace of God in the heart,
she was well aware that human efforts _must_ fail, sooner or later. She
was thinking what to reply, and praying in her heart for guidance, when
the door opened and her brother Bobby swaggered in with an air that did
not quite accord with his filthy fluttering rags, unwashed face and
hands, bare feet and unkempt hair.

"Vell, mother, 'ow are ye? Hallo! Hetty! w'y, wot a shadder you've
become! Oh! I say, them nusses at the hospital must 'ave stole all
your flesh an' blood from you, for they've left nothin' but the bones
and skin."

He went up to his sister, put an arm round her neck, and kissed her.
This was a very unusual display of affection. It was the first time
Bobby had volunteered an embrace, though he had often submitted to one
with dignified complacency, and Hetty, being weak, burst into tears.

"Hallo! I say, stop that now, young gal," he said, with a look of
alarm, "I'm always took bad ven I see that sort o' thing, I can't stand
it."

By way of mending matters the poor girl, endeavouring to be agreeable,
gave a hysterical laugh.

"Come, that's better, though it ain't much to boast of,"--and he kissed
her again.

Finding that, although for the present they were supplied with a small
amount of food, Hetty had no employment and his mother no money, our
city Arab said that he would undertake to sustain the family.

"But oh! Bobby, dear, don't steal again."

"No, Hetty, I won't, I'll vork. I didn't go for to do it a-purpose, but
I was overtook some'ow--I seed the umbrellar standin' handy, you know,
and--etceterer. But I'm sorry I did it, an' I won't do it again."

Swelling with great intentions, Robert Frog thrust his dirty little
hands into his trouser pockets--at least into the holes that once
contained them--and went out whistling.

Soon he came to a large warehouse, where a portly gentleman stood at the
door. Planting himself in front of this man, and ceasing to whistle in
order that he might speak, he said:--

"Was you in want of a 'and, sir?"

"No, I wasn't," replied the man, with a glance of contempt.