I can almost hear the good-night song of the blackbird, before he goes to sleep among the golden laburnum boughs; can almost smell the good-night sigh of the flowers, as they nod their sleepy heads and swing lazily in the evening wind. Just across the heath lives another dear friend, Mrs. Crosland, whom my little readers know. When going to visit her, I never chose to ride, enjoying much more that walk across the heath. Here the air was always fresh and cool, and the winds, without a tree or house to obstruct them, had a bold, strong, frolicsome sweep, as though glad to be free of both forest and town. The ground of this heath is smooth, and gently rolling. It does not grow the heather, but is covered everywhere with a firm turf of fine grass, which, thanks to frequent showers, always looks soft and green, though it is kept very closely cropped. In pleasant summer weather there can always be seen ranged along one side of this heath, queer little pony chaises, donkey carts, goat carriages, and ponies and donkeys saddled and bridled, all waiting to be let to invalids and children, by the hour, or for the ride. It was very amusing, on Saturday afternoons, to see school children consoling themselves for the week's confinement and study, by a wild pony trot, or a scrambling donkey gallop across the heath. Wild girls, with gipsy bonnets falling on their shoulders, and their long hair flying in the wind; wilder boys, with their satchels bobbing at their backs, their hats swung in the air, and their feet remorselessly digging into the sides of the poor little bewildered beasts who carried them. "Great fun!" "splendid sport!" they said it was, when they dismounted and paid their six-pence, but perhaps the ponies and donkeys had an opinion of their own on the subject. Donkey-riding is said to be a very healthful exercise, and invalids often drive out from town to the heaths, where these animals are always to be had, for the sake of a free ride in those fresh, open places. Hampstead-heath, which lies on the other side of London, is more frequented, both for health and pleasure; and as this was the scene of the story I am about to tell, we will take leave of Blackheath, a dear, pleasant, sunny place, in spite of its name. LITTLE ROBERT AND HIS NOBLE FRIEND. Robert Selwyn was the only son of a poor widow, who kept a small green grocer's shop, at Hampstead. Robert, at the period at which our story commences, was a fine, handsome, intelligent lad of twelve, with frank, engaging manners, and a warm, honest heart. For a boy of his age, he was remarkably thoughtful and serious; he loved books more than any thing in the world, except his mother, and actually seemed to hunger and thirst after knowledge. Mrs. Selwyn was a woman of considerable education, as she had seen better days in her youth, and now she taught Robert all that she knew, beside sending him to the parish school as often as she could spare him.