"Would He forgive me, and help me?" asked Rob; "are you quite sure He
would care to have me for a servant?"

"Of course I'm sure. He wants everybody. You just ask Him."

Rob said no more. He was a lad of few words, and for some days did not
touch on the subject again. His reading was progressing rapidly, and
when Roy and Dudley found out that his birthday was near they laid their
heads together and presented him with a handsome Bible, as they knew he
was saving up his pennies to buy one.

His gratitude and delight overwhelmed them, and every day now, when his
work was finished, he would sit down and spell out chapters of the
gospels to himself.

As the days began to shorten, Roy grew so much stronger that he was able
to be carried downstairs, and the first evening he was in the
drawing-room, he asked Miss Bertram for the song of the two little
drummer boys.

She sat down at the piano, and Dudley seeing Rob weeding a flower bed
outside the open window, beckoned to him to come up closer and listen.

"It's the best song out," he shouted.

Roy's face shone as Miss Bertram's sweet voice rang out triumphantly.

--"'the fight was won, and the regiment saved
By those two little dots in red!'"