“Oh, I say! that’s hard lines on me, when my last sixpence has gone, and I was going to get a stunning ball old Principle has in his shop!”

Miss Bertram laughed at Roy’s woe-begone little face.

“Never mind,” she said, consolingly; “your intentions were good, and you must buy your experience by mistakes as you go through life.  Now go into granny softly, both of you, and talk nicely to her.  She will be one person you can do good to, by brightening her up a little.”

Dudley made a grimace at Roy; but both boys entered the house, and crept into a cool half-darkened drawing-room on tiptoe, with hushed voices and sober demeanor.  A stern looking old lady sat upright in her easy chair, knitting busily.  She greeted the boys rather coldly.

“What have you been doing with yourselves?  I sent for you some time ago.  Do you not remember that I like you to come to me every afternoon about this hour?”

“Yes, granny,” said Roy, climbing into an easy chair opposite her; “we were coming only we didn’t know it was so late:  we were busy talking.”

“Boys’ chatter ought not to come before a grandmother’s wishes.”

There was silence; then Dudley struck in boldly: 

“We were talking about good things, granny.  It wasn’t chatter.  Roy and I are going to look out for opportunities every day of our lives.  Do you think an opportunity is the same as an adventure?  I don’t think you have adventures of doing good, do you?”

“Yes,” asserted Roy, bobbing up and down in his chair excitedly; “King Arthur and his knights did always.  They never rode through a wood without having an adventure, and it was always doing good, wasn’t it, granny?”

Conversation never slackened when the boys were present, and Mrs. Bertram, though shrinking at all times from their high spirits and love of fun, yet looked forward every day to their short visit.  She was a confirmed invalid, and rarely left the house, and her daughter Julia in consequence took her place as mistress over the household.

Three years before, Roy and Dudley arrived within a month of each other, to find a home with their grandmother.  Roy, whose proper name was Fitzroy, came from Canada, both his parents having died out there.  Dudley’s father had died when he was a baby, but his mother had married again in India; and upon her death which occurred not long after, his stepfather had sent him home to his grandmother.  From the first day that they met, the boys were sworn friends; and their aunt dubbed them “David” and “Jonathan” after having been an unseen witness of a very solemn vow transacted between them under the shadow of the pines, only a week after their meeting.