devoted to both boys; but especially to Roy, who, without Dudley's
constant remonstrance, would have tyrannized over him to his heart's
content. Miss Bertram left them alone; she exercised a certain
supervision over Rob's work, but never objected to his joining her
little nephews' amusements.

"They will not learn any harm from him," she told her mother; "and he
may teach them many things that are good."

So it came to pass that reading lessons took place regularly every day
on the top of the wall, and Rob's eagerness to master all hard words,
and his humble diffidence, when his little teachers waxed wrath with
him, was touching to witness. Sometimes conversation would bear a large
part in the lessons, especially when Roy was the teacher. And Dudley
would always insist on having a break for refreshments.

"You will be able to write letters for me, Rob, when I grow up," said
Roy, one afternoon, pausing in the lesson. "I don't like writing
letters, and I'm thinking of travelling round the world and discovering
countries, so I shall have to write home sometimes. You will come with
me, won't you?"

"For certain I will," was the emphatic reply.

"I've been thinking," pursued Roy, thoughtfully, as he let his gaze
wander from the book between them to the top of the dark pines swaying
gently in the summer breeze; "that I may be quite strong enough when I
grow up to be a discoverer. You see I can't be a soldier or sailor, but
I haven't anything the matter with me but a weak chest, and doctors say
sea voyages and travelling do weak chests good sometimes. Do you think