l philanthropy--need all this be said, we ask? We think not;
therefore we won't say it.

But it was not till Bob Frog got his mother all to himself, under the
trees, near the waterfall, down by the river that drove the still
unmended saw-mill, that they had real and satisfactory communion. It
would have been interesting to have listened to these two--with memories
and sympathies and feelings towards the Saviour of sinners so closely
intertwined, yet with knowledge and intellectual powers in many respects
so far apart. But we may not intrude too closely.

Towards the end of their walk, Bob touched on a subject which had been
uppermost in the minds of both all the time, but from which they had
shrunk equally, the one being afraid to ask, the other disinclined to
tell.

"Mother," said Bob, at last, "what about father?"

"Ah! Bobby," replied Mrs Frog, beginning to weep, gently, "I know'd ye
would come to that--you was always so fond of 'im, an' he was so fond o'
you too, indeed--"

"I know it, mother," interrupted Bob, "but have you never heard of him?"

"Never. I might 'ave, p'r'aps, if he'd bin took an' tried under his own
name, but you know he had so many aliases, an' the old 'ouse we used to
live in we was obliged to quit, so p'r'aps he tried to find us and
couldn't."

"May God help him--dear father!" said the son in a low sad voice.

"I'd never 'ave left 'im, Bobby, if he 'adn't left me. You know that.
An' if I thought he was alive and know'd w'ere he was, I'd go back to
'im yet, but--"

The subject was dropped here, for the new mill came suddenly into view,
and Bob was glad to draw his mother's attention to it.

"See, we were mending that just before we got the news you were so near
us. Come, I'll show it to you. Tim Lumpy and I made it all by
ourselves, and I think you'll call it a first-class article. By the
way, how came you to travel first-class?"

"Oh! that's all along of Sir Richard Brandon. He's sitch a liberal
gentleman, an' said that as it was by his advice we were goin' to
Canada, he would pay our expenses; and he's so grand that he never
remembered there was any other class but first, when he took the
tickets, an' when he was show'd what he'd done he laughed an' said he
wouldn't alter it, an' we must go all the way first-class. He's a
strange man, but a good 'un!"

By this time they had reached the platform of the damaged saw-mill, and
Bob pointed out, with elaborate care, the deta