avations. The railway embankment he had half thought of
helping to construct was already overgrown with grass, and thundered
under the weight of trains every few minutes.

Ash Cottage had not changed a plank or a tile since he last saw it.
There were the same cracks in the wall of the shed, the same bushes on
either side of the gate--nay, he was sure those wisps of hay clinging to
the branches of the holly had been there two years ago.

As he walked somewhat doubtfully towards the house--for he could hardly
forget under what circumstances he had last seen Farmer Rosher--he heard
a boy's shout behind him, and looking round, perceived Freddy and Teddy
giving chase.

"It _is_ Jeff!" shouted Freddy. "I knew him a mile away."

"I saw him first. We knew you'd come back, Jeff; huzzah!"

"That tricycle wants looking to awful bad. Our feet touch the ground on
it now, Jeff."

"Come on to the shed, I say, and put it right. _How_ brickish of you to
come back, Jeff!"

A long afternoon the happy Jeff spent over that intractable tricycle.
It was past all repair; but no feat of engineering was ever applauded as
were the one or two touches by which he contrived to make it stand
upright and bear the weight of a boy. Before the work was over Farmer
Rosher had joined them, well pleased at his boys' delight.

"Thee's paid oop for thy sin, lad," said he. "I did thee and the lads
more harm than I meant; but thee's a home here whenever thee likes, to
make up for it; and come away and see the missus and have a drop of
tea."

From the farmer, who may have had good reason for knowing, Jeffreys
learned that Mrs Trimble was comfortably quartered in an almshouse; and
there, next morning--for there was do escaping from Ash Cottage that
night--he found her, and soothed her with the news he had to tell of her
poor prodigal.

"Well, well," she said, "God is merciful; and He will reward you, John,
as He had pity on the lad. And now will you be sure and take a mother's
blessing to the sweet lady, and tell her if she ever wants to make an
old woman happy, he has only to come here, and let me see her and kiss
her for what she has done for me and mine?"

That message he delivered a week later as he walked with Raby one
afternoon in Regent's Park. It was not exactly a chance walk. They had
both been up to the orphanage at Hampstead with the reluctant Tim and
his brother, to leave them there in good motherly hands till the
troubles of i