Before Tim could reply, Mr Merryboy came forward.

"Capital!" he exclaimed, on catching sight of the fish; "well done,
lads, well done. We shall have a glorious supper to-night. Now, Mumpy,
you run home and tell mother to have the big frying-pan ready. She'll
want your help. Ha!" he added, turning to the boys, as Martha ran off
with her wonted alacrity, "I thought you'd soon teach yourselves how to
catch fish. It's not difficult here. And what do you think of Martha,
my boys?"

"She's a trump!" said Bobby, with decision.

"Fust rate!" said Tim, bestowing his highest conception of praise.

"Quite true, lads; though why you should say `fust' instead of
first-rate, Tim, is more than I can understand. However, you'll get
cured of such-like queer pronunciations in course of time. Now, I want
you to look on little Mumpy as your sister, and she's a good deal of
your sister too in reality, for she came out of that same great nest of
good and bad, rich and poor--London. Has she told you anything about
herself yet?"

"Nothin', sir," answered Bob, "'cept that when we axed--asked, I mean--I
ax--ask your parding--she said she'd neither father nor mother."

"Ah! poor thing; that's too true. Come, pick up your fish, and I'll
tell you about her as we go along."

The boys strung their fish on a couple of branches, and followed their
new master home.

"Martha came to us only last year," said the farmer. "She's a little
older than she looks, having been somewhat stunted in her growth, by bad
treatment, I suppose, and starvation and cold in her infancy. No one
knows who was her father or mother. She was `found' in the streets one
day, when about three years of age, by a man who took her home, and made
use of her by sending her to sell matches in public-houses. Being
small, very intelligent for her years, and attractively modest, she
succeeded, I suppose, in her sales, and I doubt not the man would have
continued to keep her, if he had not been taken ill and carried to
hospital, where he died. Of course the man's lodging was given up the
day he left it. As the man had been a misanthrope--that's a hater of
everybody, lads--nobody cared anything about him, or made inquiry after
him. The consequence was, that poor Martha was forgotten, strayed away
into the streets, and got lost a second time. She was picked up this
time by a widow lady in very reduced circumstances, who questioned her
closely; but all that the p