g to do this part himself, but he generously said
nothing, and presented Roy with a brass button out of his pocket, to
stamp on the hot wax.

A lot of sealing wax was dropped indiscriminately all over the paper,
and then old nurse appeared on the scene to order Dudley off.

"You've been far too long with him already, to my mind," she said; "if
Miss Bertram wasn't beside herself she would never have given you
permission at all; he ought to have been kept extra quiet, and he's
worked himself all in a fever again." She put Roy gently back on his
pillows, and did not notice in her short-sightedness the roll of paper
being stuffed under his pillow. Dudley's spirits sank to zero, now he
was about to be dismissed.

"Good-bye, Roy, ask to see me again, won't you?"

Roy held out his hand.

"I'll talk about it to-morrow," he said, faintly.

And Dudley crept out of the room feeling more forlorn and wretched than
ever.

X

A CRIPPLE

It was all over; two doctors had been closetted in the bedroom for a
very long time, and then Dudley and Rob, sitting on the garden steps,
were told that everything had been successfully carried out, and Roy was
as well and better than had been expected.

"I never saw such fortitude and calm self-control in my life," said Miss
Bertram to her mother; "it was unnatural for a child of his age!"

"He is a true Bertram in spirit," said the grandmother, proudly; then
she added with a sigh, "but, alas, not in body."

"Nurse," said Dudley that night as he was creeping into bed under her
charge; "is Roy going to die?"

"I hope not," answered nurse, a little tearfully. "Doctor Grant says
he'll make a good recovery, but he whispered himself to me--Master Roy
did just before he took the sleeping draught--'Nurse I'll have my leg
buried with me!' he says."

Dudley was silent for a minute, then he asked, solemnly, "And where is
it, nurse?"

Nurse turned upon him tearfully and angrily,

"I believe as how you haven't one speck of feeling for that blessed
darling, you naughty boy! To talk of such a thing in such a way with not
a tear on your face! And to think of him laying there a helpless
cripple, and him the owner of the biggest estate in the county!"

Dudley crept into bed feeling he had no more tears to shed, wondering
when he would be allowed to see Roy again, and also wondering who was
the possessor of his lost leg.

It was a fortnight before he was allowed to see the little invali