"So you've been under the stack here all night, instead of in your own bed!"

do

Robert stammered, “Ye-es, sir!" and stood up. "If you're far from home, you'd best have some breakfast in the kitchen before starting. Where you live?" continued the kind-hearted farmer. "I'm looking for work, sir! I'm many a mile from home. I'd travelled a good bit yesterday, and so slept under the stack."

"Looking for work!" echoed Robert's questioner. "Well, we could do with another hand or two till all the harvest's got in! But you don't seem like a boy accustomed to sleep out of doors. Did you ever pass a night out of your bed before?"

Robert said, "No, sir!" adding that "last night he had been so tired he was glad to lie down anywhere!"

"And now you'll be glad of breakfast, I should think!" said the farmer, looking at the boy's tidy clothes and neat appearance, for, though he had rested in the field all night, he had the air of a respectable, well-brought-up boy. "But first I want to know where you come from?" added the farmer. Down Petersfield way," answered Robert

vaguely. "I hope you'll give me some work, sir, for I've no home now; I'm looking for work!" "Can you lead horses?" asked the farmer. "Yes, and likes it!" replied Robert.

"Well, go and wash your face at the pump, and then you shall have some breakfast, and we'll settle about wages and tell you where you can get a bed when work's over. Look alive! We must get a good deal of corn in to-day."

This sudden and unexpected provision of food and work, the necessity of grasping it now it was to be had, the loss of all time to dwell at this moment on his loneliness, his grief, and his strange situation, all made the boy able to go on without betraying his breaking heart, which continually turned towards his mother and Emmy, and his little brother and sisters.

All through that warm autumn day, at every pause in his work, as he led the horses in the waggon, and plodded on as he was told, he saw pictures of his lost home rise before him-pictures in which everything he had left was vividly recalled. The very rabbits in their hutch in the corner of the garden-his no more-were dearer to him now; he wondered who would feed them, who would

find fresh sow-thistle and cow-parsley for them under the hedges. He even longed to see his father again, much as he now feared him; for after all he loved his father more dearly than he had supposed. But it seemed to his childish heart that he had offended him beyond forgive

ness.

The fresh air, the necessity of 'looking alive!' as the farmer had phrased it, supported him through the day, and when evening came he was so weary that he could hardly manage to get to the village near, where, through the kind directions of the farmer's wife, he was to find a bed. A widow woman who worked at the farm was glad enough to get a lodger, and willingly made up a bed for the forlorn child in one of the two room's of her cottage.

"You'll do very well," said the farmer kindly, when the day's work was over, "and you're a bit tired from yesterday. I'll try to hear of work for you hereabouts when harvesting's over. They might want a garden boy up at the great house."

Robert was somewhat comforted, though the pain at his heart never ceased. But he slept deeply, worn out with unusual toil and grief.

The woman Robert lodged with was obliged to be early at the farm, and as they trudged back together at the end of his second day's work, she began to question him—“ Hadn't he got a mother alive, or a father?"

For all answer Robert burst into tears, and repeated through his sobs, what he had before told the farmer, that "he hadn't no home nowthat he came from down Petersfield way-and that he had come from his own place to look for work."

The woman was sorry to have made him cry; she had heard talk of Petersfield, but had never been there, and took Robert's words to mean that he had now neither father nor mother, and so had lost his home. Not wishing to make him shed more tears, she began to talk about the people at the farm, saying how kind they were, and how she had worked for them now twenty years on and off.

It had been arranged that Robert should share her meals; and he soon found that, little as she asked for bed and board, and simple as was the fare, when he had paid her, he had but sixpence a week left from his earnings.

CHAPTER III.

A BROKEN PROMISE.

UT we must now go back to explain what had happened to drive Robert from home.

Mr. Breeley, the clergyman at Lington (the village where the Watsons lived), was much beloved by his parishioners, and they were all sincerely sorry when they heard that he would be obliged to leave home for some weeks, perhaps months, on account of failing health.

His wife and family were to accompany him, and a strange gentleman from a distance was to take the duty at Lington during Mr. Breeley's absence. In consequence of this, the inmates of the Parsonage were busy packing up, and making arrangements, both for the reception of the new