ils of the mill in all its
minute particulars, commenting specially on the fact that most of the
telling improvements on it were due to the fertile brain and inventive
genius of Tim Lumpy. He also explained the different kinds of saws--the
ripping saw, and the cross-cut saw, and the circular saw, and the
eccentric saw--just as if his mother were an embryo mill-wright, for he
_felt_ that she took a deep interest in it all, and Mrs Frog listened
with the profound attention of a civil engineer, and remarked on
everything with such comments as--oh! indeed! ah! well now! ain't it
wonderful? amazin'! an' you made it all too! Oh! Bobby!--and other
more or less appropriate phrases.

On quitting the mill to return to the house they saw a couple of figures
walking down another avenue, so absorbed in conversation that they did
not at first observe Bob and his mother, or take note of the fact that
Matty, being a bouncing girl, had gone after butterflies or some such
child-alluring insects.

It was Tim Lumpy and Hetty Frog.

And no wonder that they were absorbed, for was not their conversation on
subjects of the profoundest interest to both?--George Yard, Whitechapel,
Commercial Street, Spitalfields, and the Sailor's Home, and the Rests,
and all the other agencies for rescuing poor souls in monstrous London,
and the teachers and school companions whom they had known there and
never could forget! No wonder, we say, that these two were absorbed
while comparing notes, and still less wonder that they were even more
deeply absorbed when they got upon the theme of Bobby Frog--so much
loved, nay, almost worshipped, by both.

At last they observed Mrs Frog's scarlet shawl--which was very
conspicuous--and her son, and tried to look unconscious, and wondered
with quite needless surprise where Matty could have gone to.

Bobby Frog, being a sharp youth, noted these things, but made no comment
to any one, for the air of Canada had, somehow, invested this waif with
wonderful delicacy of feeling.

Although Bob and his mother left off talking of Ned Frog somewhat
abruptly, as well as sorrowfully, it does not follow that we are bound
to do the same. On the contrary, we now ask the reader to leave Brankly
Farm rather abruptly, and return to London for the purpose of paying Ned
a visit.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

A STRANGE VISIT AND ITS RESULTS.

Edward Frog, bird-fancier, pugilist, etcetera, (and the etcetera
represents an unknown q