Rob grinned, and seemed to think it a great joke.

Roy continued: "Of course I shall want you more when Dudley goes away.
He has got a stepfather, so when he grows up he will go out to India, I
expect, to live with him, but we don't talk of it, and we pretend we're
never going to leave each other. Did you find Dudley very much heavier
to carry than me?"

"Well, yes, he were a bit heavier."

"I'm afraid I shall never catch him up, he is nearly a head taller, and
he seems to grow quicker every month. I grow so slowly. I think it is
because I lie in bed so much more than he does, I'm always having to go
to bed in the daytime when I'm ill, and that must keep you from growing,
don't you think so?"

The conversation was here interrupted by Miss Bertram's entrance. She
had a long talk with Rob, and in the end took him for a month on trial,
as she had known his father.

The boys were delighted, but Roy still persisted in regarding him as
his special protégé, and more than once this had occasioned a heated
argument between the two cousins.

"He doesn't belong to you. You order him about as if he were your
servant," said Dudley, impatiently, one afternoon after Roy had sent Rob
on more than one errand to the house for him.

"Well, so he will be one day," returned Roy, flushing up.