looking up at them with his straw hat pushed to the back of his
head, and his keen, piercing eyes twinkling kindly under his thick,
shaggy eyebrows.

"Well, laddies, you're above me now. 'Tisn't often you can look down at
old Principle from such a superior height."

"We want to ask you if we may send Rob down to you for you to teach him
to read," said Roy, eagerly.

"And why have not two idle boys more time than a busy shopkeeper to do
such a thing?" demanded the old man.

"Oh, well, you see," explained Roy, confusedly; "grown-up people know
how to teach, and boys don't. Besides, we aren't idle, we work hard at
lessons all the morning, and we have half an hour's prep after tea."

Old Principle shook his head.

"And you're the lad for making people better, and doing good to all.
'Tis a bad principle, my boy, to wait for great opportunities, and let
the small ones go!"

"Do you think we ought to teach him?" questioned Dudley.

"If he wants to learn, and you have the time, you will be letting the
opportunity slip, that's all. And moreover old Principle isn't going to
be the one to help you do it."

The old man turned his back upon them and walked into the pine wood
again, leaving the two boys gazing after him with perturbed faces.

"He's rather cross this afternoon," observed Dudley.

"I s'pose he thinks it's for our good. Shall we try again? Could you
teach him one day, and me the next? That wouldn't be quite so tiring."

Rob was called upon and consulted, and it was finally arranged that
every afternoon from two to three he should have a reading lesson on the
top of the garden wall.

"We shan't feel sleepy here, and it's the time everybody else is taking
a nap," said Roy, trying to take a cheerful view of it. "I'm going to
try and be very patient and not be cross once, for you're our
opportunity, or one of them, isn't he, Dudley?"

Dudley nodded. "The biggest we've had yet," he said.

Rob grinned and went away delighted. He was a steady, honest lad,
devoted to both boys; but especially to Roy, who, without Dudley's
constant remonstrance, would have tyrannized over him to his heart's
content. Miss Bertram left them alone; she exercised a certain
supervision over Rob's work, but never objected to his joining her
little nephews' amusements.

"They will not learn any harm from him," she told her mother; "and he
may teach them many things that are good."

So it came to pass that reading lessons took place