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.

Roy's delicate health was a cause of great anxiety to his grandmother,
and if it had not been for Miss Bertram's wise tact and judgment, he
would have been imprisoned in one room and swathed in cotton wool most
of the year round. He had the advantage of having an old nurse who had
brought him up from his birth, and had come from Canada with him; and
she was as vigilant and experienced in managing his ailments as could be
desired. Poor little Roy, with his uncertain health, was heir to a very
large property of his father's not f