and a wide-awake on the
back of his bald head.

"Mr Merryboy, I presume?" said the Guardian, descending from the car.

"The same. Glad to see you. Are these my boys?"

He spoke in a quick, hearty, off-hand manner, but Bobby and Tim hated
him at once, for were they not on the point of leaving their last and
best friend, and was not this man the cause?

They turned to their Guardian to say farewell, and, even to their own
surprise, burst into tears.

"God bless you, dear boys," he said, while the guard held open the door
of the car as if to suggest haste; "good-bye. It won't be _very_ long I
think before I see you again. Farewell."

He sprang into the car, the train glided away, and the two waifs stood
looking wistfully after it with the first feelings of desolation that
had entered their hearts since landing in Canada.

"My poor lads," said Mr Merryboy, laying a hand on the shoulder of
each, "come along with me. Home is only six miles off, and I've got a
pair of spanking horses that will trundle us over in no time."

The tone of voice, to say nothing of "home" and "spanking horses,"
improved matters greatly. Both boys thought, as they entered the wagon,
that they did not hate him quite so much as at first.

The bays proved worthy of their master's praise. They went over the
road through the forest in grand style, and in little more than half an
hour landed Bobby and Tim at the door of their Canadian home.

It was dark by that time, and the ruddy light that shone in the windows
and that streamed through the door as it opened to receive them seemed
to our waifs like a gleam of celestial light.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

AT HOME IN CANADA.

The family of Mr Merryboy was a small one. Besides those who assisted
him on the farm--and who were in some cases temporary servants--his
household consisted of his wife, his aged mother, a female servant, and
a small girl. The latter was a diamond from the London diggings, who
had been imported the year before. She was undergoing the process of
being polished, and gave promise of soon becoming a very valuable gem.
It was this that induced her employer to secure our two masculine gems
from the same diggings.

Mrs Merryboy was a vigorous, hearty, able-bodied lady, who loved work
very much for the mere exercise it afforded her; who, like her husband,
was constitutionally kind, and whose mind was of that serious type which
takes concern with the souls of the people w