scratched Jack's hand and mine,
horribly, when we were tying on the bands."

At the tree the others met them, and they laughed and chatted all
the way back; the young ones expressing much regret, however, that
Bob was to be away at Christmas.

At the appointed time, Mr. Bale and Bob took their places on the
coach. The latter felt a little oppressed; for his uncle had, the
evening before, been putting him through a sort of examination as
to the value of wines; and had been exceedingly severe when Bob had
not acquitted himself to his satisfaction, but had mixed up Malaga
with Madeira, and had stated that a French wine was grown near
Cadiz.

"I expect I shall know them better when I get to taste them," Bob
had urged, in excuse. "When you don't know anything about the
wines, it is very difficult to take an interest in them. It is like
learning that a town in India is on the Ganges. You don't care
anything about the town, and you don't care anything about the
Ganges; and you are sure to mix it up, next time, with some other
town on some other river."

"If those are your ideas, Robert, I think you had better go to
bed," Mr. Bale had said, sternly; and Bob had gone to bed, and had
thought what a nuisance it was that his uncle was going down to
Portsmouth, just when he wanted to be jolly with Carrie and her
husband for the last time.

Little had been said at breakfast, and it was not until the coach
was rattling along the high road, and the last house had been left
behind him, that Bob's spirits began to rise. There had been a
thaw, a few days before, and the snow had disappeared; but it was
now freezing sharply again.

"The air is brisk. Do you feel it cold, Robert?" Mr. Bale said,
breaking silence for the first time.

"I feel cold about the toes, and about the ears and nose, uncle,"
Bob said, "but I am not very likely to feel cold, anywhere else."

His uncle looked down at the boy, who was wedged in between him and
a stout woman.

"Well, no," he agreed; "you are pretty closely packed. You had
better pull that muffler over your ears more. It was rather
different weather when you went down to Canterbury in the summer."

"That it was," Bob replied, heartily. "It was hot and dusty, just;
and there were a man and woman, sitting opposite, who kept on
drinking out of a bottle, every five minutes. She had a baby with
her, too, who screamed almost all the way. I consider I saved that
baby's life."

"How was that, Rob