“From Rob?” said Roy, with sparkling eyes.  “Oh, I thought he never would write.  How jolly!  And I see his writing, that’s my letter.”

He held out his hand eagerly but Mrs. Hawthorn laid her hand on his shoulder gently.

“Yes, that was a letter he wrote to you before the fighting.  Your aunt has heard since—­from a nurse who nursed him.”

Something in her tone frightened Roy.

“Has he been wounded?  He is well again, isn’t he?”

“He is quite well now,” she said, in a hushed voice.

For a minute Roy gazed at her, with horror and doubt dawning in his dark eyes, then snatching the letters out of her hand he rushed out of the room; and seizing hold of Dudley in the hall he exclaimed almost frantically: 

“Dudley, something awful has happened to Rob, let us get away from the house and read these letters.”

He held them tightly in his hand, and would not let Dudley take them from his grasp, till they reached the beach.

Then sitting down and leaning against an old weather-beaten rock, Roy, with trembling fingers, first unfolded Rob’s letter to himself.

   “My dear master Roy: 

“We are going up to the mountains to-morrow to fight.  The men say it will be stiff work, driving an old chief from his stronghold.  Some of them don’t like it, but I am ready.  I am a better writer now, I hope, so want to tell you what I never have yet.  I do thank you with all my heart for being so kind to a homeless lad and taking him in and giving him a happy home.  And I thank you much more for teaching him to read and write and giving up your playtime to get him on.  But if I was to thank you for a hundred years, I couldn’t thank you enough for telling me about my Saviour and showing me the way to heaven.  Every word you ever said is sticking to me.  I mind all our talks, and if I may have had some rough times in trying to serve God first, I have been as happy as a king.  And I have found that the Lord has kept me through the worst times, and I love Him with all my heart.  When I get to heaven I shall be able to thank you proper.  I do feel thankful to you and Master Dudley.  And now good-bye and God bless you.

   “Your faithful Rob forever.”

Roy read this through.

“He’s all right, Dudley.  What did she mean?  Why did she look so funny?”

Dudley shook his head.

“I don’t know, read what Aunt Judy says.”

Roy spread out his aunt’s letter, and read it in unfaltering tones to the end.

   “My poor dear little Jonathan: