His big opportunity

HEROES

Old Principle's accident was a great event in the village. The boys got their fair share of praise in his rescue, but their grandmother did not see it in such a favorable light.

"You ought never to have left your lessons without leave, or taken a cart belonging to a stranger all unknown to him, or gone off alone without telling any one about it. And you were shown the folly and uselessness of such a proceeding by arriving on the scene and being utterly unable to extricate him from his position. If children would realize their weakness and foolishness more in these days, they would develop into better men and women, but self-sufficiency and self-conceit are signs of the times!"

Every day the boys went to see their friend, and even Mrs. Selby allowed that they could be quiet and well-behaved in a sick room. It was a long time before old Principle regained his health, and he seemed to have grown much older and feebler since his accident; but his serenity of spirit was undisturbed, and some of the neighbors who had before voted him close and cranky, now offered to come and sit with him, and learned many a lesson from his sickbed. When he was at last able to take his place in the shop again, Roy's mind was at ease about him.

"I was so afraid he was going to die as long as he stayed in bed," he confided to Dudley: "I hope no one will ever die that I like, it must be such a dreadful thing to have them gone. I think I would rather die first, wouldn't you?"

"We can't all die first," said matter-of-fact Dudley; "somebody must be last."

"Well, I don't think I shall be," returned Roy, "that's the best of being weak like I am."

But this assurance brought no comfort to Dudley.

A few more labored letters came from Rob, and then one that stirred the boys' hearts after he had been about three months away from them. It was to say that he was going out to India in a draft, and had been allowed three days to come and say good-bye to his friends.

Roy was almost beside himself with excitement at the prospect of seeing him again; and when the day came, he insisted upon going to the station by himself to meet him. Dudley perched on the garden wall awaited their coming.

Rob was certainly improved in appearance. He held himself up bravely, but a softened light came into his eyes, as Roy, looking whiter and more fragile than ever, flung himself into his arms, utterly regardless of all onlookers.

"I'm right glad to see you, Master Roy," said Rob, in a husky voice.

"Oh, Rob, you look so splendid! And you've got to be quite a man! Come on, I'm going to drive you home, and we shall be all by ourselves. Now tell me, are you really and truly happy?"

Rob did not answer this question till he was in the trap being driven homeward; then he said, slowly, "Yes, I'm thinking I like it first-rate, but 'tis hard in many ways. 'Tis hard to keep straight and do the right, when most seems to live the other way."

"But most of the soldiers aren't bad, are they?" questioned Roy with startled eyes.

"They aren't out and out bad—just careless, I reckon, but old Principle would say they're lacking in principle."

"And is it hard being a soldier? I suppose it must be a little. I came across a text I thought would just fit you, Rob, the other day. 'Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"

Rob's eyes brightened. He seemed strangely older and graver in his ways, yet when they drove up in sight of Dudley who slipped down over the wall, and tumbled himself into the trap with them, he made the boys roar with laughter with his funny incidents of barrack-room life.

The three days passed only too soon. Innumerable were the questions put to the young soldier, and Roy's curiosity about a military life was insatiable.

"Well," he said at last, "I don't think I should be strong enough to be a soldier, but I'm awfully glad you're one, Rob. And now you've got your chance in India of doing something grand and getting the Victoria Cross. The opportunity has come to you, and Dudley and I can't get it, though we've tried hard. But we have helped to send you out to India to do it, Rob, so you won't fail us, will you? And then when you come back covered with medals, you shall live with me and always dress in your uniform, so we'll look forward and think of that!"

When Rob departed, he had quite a little party of friends to see him off at the station. Old Hal, the gardener, Ted, the stable-boy, and old Principle were there, and Miss Bertram and her nephews were with him to the last.

"He's begun right, and he'll go on like it," announced old Principle, with emphasis, as the train steamed out of the station, and Rob leaned out of the window to wave a last farewell to his friends. "'Tis the beginnin' of life that boys make such a mess of, as a rule!"

Roy's eyes were tearful as he watched the train disappear.

"I've given him to the Queen," he said, gravely, to his aunt; "and no one can say I'm selfish, for I'd much rather have had him stay with me. But as I can't do anything grand, he must do it for me!"

The day after Rob left them, the boys had an invitation to spend the day with Roy's guardian, General Newton. He did not often ask them over to see him, so it was considered a great treat, and they set off in high spirits. The groom drove them over, and they were shown into the general's study at once upon their arrival. He was not by himself; another grey-haired gentleman was seated there smoking, and the boys wondered at first who he was, but General Newton soon enlightened them.

"This is a very old chum of mine, boys, who was in my regiment with me when I first enlisted; he has been a hero in his time, so if you make up to him he will tell you some wonderful stories. Now, Manning, these boys are smitten with the 'scarlet fever' at present, as a young friend of theirs has just enlisted. Tell them something about the Crimea; you had plenty of ghastly experiences there."

Colonel Manning laughed as he met the boys' admiring gaze, and before long he was enchanting them by his reminiscences.

"Now will you tell us the very bravest thing that you ever saw any soldier do?" demanded Roy, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

Colonel Manning looked at his little auditor rather thoughtfully.

"I've seen a good many brave deeds done," he said, slowly; "but one stands out in my memory above and beyond them all."

"Oh, do tell us."

"It was quite a young lad, a recruit that came to join our regiment when we were in Malta. He was a fair, curly-headed boy, and seemed quite frightened at the rough life and ways of his comrades. I happened to be orderly officer one evening, and was going my rounds, when I passed one of the barrack-rooms just before lights were out. It was in a low building and the windows were open. The men were noisy, and the first thing I heard was a volley of oaths from one of the oldest soldiers there. The corporal in charge instead of reproving him, was joining in, and there was a great dispute between a lot of them about some small matter, when this young chap stood up with a flush on his cheeks. 'Comrades,' he cried; 'would any of you allow your mother to be called evil names in the barrack-room?' His voice rang put so clearly that there was a hush at once, and they turned to him in wonder. 'You know you wouldn't,' he went on; 'and you are ill-treating the name of One who is dearer and nearer to me than any mother—the best Friend I've got. I tell you, I won't allow you to do it while I am in the room!' I remember as I stood there and heard him, and saw the men utterly abashed before the boy, I felt he had a courage that none of us could equal."

"Is that all?" asked Dudley, with disappointment in his tone.

"Did the men stop swearing?" asked Roy.

"As far as I can remember, they did. The corporal rebuked them, and lights were put out, but that boy was braver than many a hero on the battlefield."

The boys' faces fell.

"But that was not what we call a brave deed," said Roy, at length. "Of course it was splendid of him, but it wouldn't get him the Victoria Cross."

"No, only a crown of everlasting life, and a word of commendation from the King of Kings," said the colonel, in a strangely quiet voice; but Roy's expressive little face kindled at once, and he said no more. They went into the dining-room to lunch soon, and the boys were too busy enjoying the good things before them to talk much to their elders. After it was over General Newton sent them out for a run in the garden. And then when they came in, he asked them if they would like to come upstairs to his old picture gallery.

"I am going to take my friend up, and you can come, too."

The boys were delighted; they had often heard of this gallery, but had never been in it as General Newton kept it locked up, and very rarely opened it.

"I have some gems amongst the portraits," he said to Colonel Manning as he unlocked a door in the passage, and led them into a long dusky corridor; "I will pull up the blinds and then we shall see. They are mostly ancestors, but one or two are by master hands, and two or three royal personages are amongst them."

The boys listened eagerly whilst their host pointed out one and another, with now and then an anecdote connected with them.

"Look," said Roy, delightedly, "there's a fine soldier. He is quite young, and yet what a lot of medals! and oh, General Newton, isn't that the Victoria Cross on his coat?"

"Yes, my boy, he served his country well for such a youngster, he fought in eight battles, and came home without a scratch, though he had many hair-breadth escapes. In one battle he had two horses shot under him, and he saved the colors on foot, though he was leading a cavalry charge."

"He was a regular hero!" murmured the admiring boys.

"I don't think he was," said the general, drily. "He had plenty of dash and go, but no moral courage. He came home after the wars were over, and broke his mother's heart by becoming a drunkard and a gambler; and he died an early death from drink and dissipation."

Roy looked very puzzled.

"I thought a brave man must be a good one, and brave and good to the end of his life."

"A man can face the cannon's mouth better than a friend's ridicule," said General Newton; "the young soldier we were hearing about before dinner had a nobler courage than this poor fellow here."

Roy said no more, but though he listened and looked, the rest of the time they were in the gallery, his thoughts were with the hero of the Victoria Cross. He ran back to have one more look at him before they went downstairs, and gazed up at the bold, frank bearing, and the laughing mouth of the soldier, with wistful pity in his brown eyes.

"You served your Queen and country, but I expect you left out God," he said, in a whisper; then he ran on to overtake the others.

After an early tea the boys were packed up in the trap to come home.

"Drive home as quickly as you can," said the general to the groom, "for rain is not far off, and it will not do to let Master Fitz Roy get a soaking; he looks as if a breath of wind will blow him away."

"I do hate people talking about me like that," Roy confided to Dudley as they set off at a brisk rate; "I might just as well be a girl. I often wonder I wasn't born one for all the good that I shall do in the world."

"That's all stuff," said Dudley, indignantly; "you'll be an awfully strong man I expect when you grow up, you see if you aren't!"

Roy shook his head, and was unusually silent for some time. They were driving through the outskirts of a village when down came the rain. The groom wrapped the boys up as well as he could, and was urging the horse on, when it suddenly shied and came to a standstill. Looking down, the groom saw a small child seated in the middle of the road, almost miraculously preserved from the horse's hoofs.

"Well, here's a go," he muttered; "where on earth does it come from, we don't want no delay in such a storm as this!"

The boys had sprung down at once from the trap, and were endeavoring to drag the child away when it burst into roars of fright and anger.

"I want mummy—oh, mummy!"

It was a little girl between three and four. She had been placidly nursing a doll in the middle of the road, and seemed perfectly oblivious of wind and rain.

"Where do you live?" asked Roy, but the child only continued to wail for its mother.

"Here, Master Roy, you'll be wet through. Come back, and let Master Dudley hoist her up to me. We can't stop all day trying to find out where she lives. We'll take her back with us for the time."

But this did not please Roy.

"No, we must find her mother; she must come from the village we have passed. You wait there with the horse, Sanders, and we'll take her back."

"Let Master Dudley do it, then," said Sanders, crossly, "and you get into the trap again."

This also Roy refused to do.

"It's an opportunity, isn't it, Dudley? And look she has taken hold of my hand; you run on in front and ask about her at the first cottage you come to, and I'll bring her after you."

Sanders grumbled and growled, but the boys did not heed him. Happily the mother of the child soon appeared, thanked them profusely, and Roy and Dudley clambered up into the trap again, both wet through.

"You're a heedless, disobedient pair," said the wrathful Sanders, "and if I'm blamed for your taking to your beds and gettin' rheumaticky fever and inflammation of the lungs, it won't be my fault, and I shall tell the missus so!"

AN UNWELCOME PROPOSAL

Roy was not well for some time after this episode. He had a bad bronchial attack, and was in the hands of his old nurse again.

"It do seem as if everything conspires to make you a delicate lad," she said one day; "it beats me how you come through it as well as you do! But 'tis mostly your thoughtless ways that leads you into trouble."

"I'm sorry," Roy said, cheerfully; "but I expect I'm stronger than I look. I never shall be much of a fellow, I know; but even with my cork leg I can do a good deal, can't I?"

"You're worth two of Master Dudley!" ejaculated the fond nurse, but this assertion was of course questioned.

"I shall never be like Dudley, never! Not in looks, or strength, or goodness. He is better than I am all round!"

Miss Bertram came into the room at this moment.

"Ah, nurse," she said, in her bright, brisk way; "he is like a cat, isn't he? Has nine lives, I'm sure. There never was such a boy for getting into scrapes. I'm in fear whenever he is out of our sight now that he may never come back again."

"Now, Aunt Judy, you wouldn't have liked me not to have got out to that baby?"

"I should like some one else to have done it."

"Yes, I suppose Dudley would have done it," and Roy's tone was a little sad; "but you see I wanted to help. As he was saying to me this morning, he will have many more chances than I when he gets bigger and goes out to India to do good to people. I shall have to stop at home now, for I shall never be able to ride, he will have all the big opportunities, and I must be content with the little ones."

"You talk like a little old grandfather, sometimes," said Miss Bertram, laughing, as she sat down beside him. "You must make the most of David while he is with you, for I have heard from his stepfather this morning, and he wishes him sent to school at once."

Roy's eyes opened wide.

"But I shall go too, shan't I, Aunt Judy?"

"I am afraid not just yet. You are not fit to rough it; besides we couldn't lose both our boys!"

"But I must go if Dudley goes, I must!" and Roy's tone was passionate now. "I won't have him go away from me—I've lost Rob, and that is bad enough—You wouldn't take Dudley away from me, too, Aunt Judy!"

"Hush, hush, we will not talk any more about it now. He will not go till after Easter, and that won't be here yet."

Miss Bertram was sorry she had broached the subject, when she saw Roy's distress, and going downstairs sent Dudley up to play with him.

Later on when she was sitting with her mother in the drawing-room a small head appeared. "May I come in, granny?"

It was Dudley, and his round and rosy face was unusually solemn. Marching in he took up his position on the hearth-rug, his back to the fire, and with his hands deep in his pockets, he turned his face rather defiantly toward his grandmother.

"Granny, I'm not going to school without Roy."

"Hoighty-toity! What next, I wonder. Is that the way for little boys to speak to their elders. You will do what you are told as long as you are in my house, as your father did before you."

"It is your stepfather's wish," put in Miss Bertram; "you ought to be willing to obey him."

"Not if he tells me to do something wrong. And I'm sure it would be quite a wrong thing for me to go away from Roy. We have promised never to leave each other till we grow up, and we don't mean to break our promise. And, granny, I'm sure you don't like broken promises. Father doesn't know about Roy, and he can't understand like I do, and it would be very wrong of him if he took me away from Roy!"

Mrs. Bertram put on her glasses and inspected her little grandson with searching eyes.

"That is a most disrespectful speech, Dudley. I shall of course uphold your father's wishes."

"But, granny, I can't leave Roy. It will break his heart. You don't know how he frets about his leg. He doesn't say much and is always so cheerful, but he misses me most awfully even if I'm away for a day. If he was well and strong, he could get on first-rate, but he wouldn't get about half so much if I didn't take him. I think he would mope and mope all by himself. And I don't think we could live without each other. You won't send me away, will you?"

Tears were filling Dudley's blue eyes, but Mrs. Bertram looked displeased.

"In my days, children never thought of arguing with their elders. I think your aunt and I are as capable of taking care of Roy as you are. Now leave the room, and do not refer to the matter again."

Then Dudley astonished his grandmother by the first exhibition of temper that he had ever displayed before her.

"I won't be separated from Roy. If you send me to school, I shall run away, and I shall write and tell father the reason!"

A stamp of the foot emphasized this passionate speech, and then Dudley fled from the room, banging the door violently behind him.

As on a former occasion he now took himself and his grief to old Principle. It was early-closing day in the village, and he found the old man just locking up his door prepared for a ramble.

"Come along up to the hills with me, laddie," he said, after hearing the trouble; "there's nothing like fresh air for blowing away a fit of the dumps. I am going to the cave again—will you come with me?"

"Yes, I will. I've been in an awful temper in granny's room, and banged her door. I don't think she'll ever forgive me!"

"'Tis like this, Master Dudley," said old Principle, presently, as they walked over the hills together; "if it's right for you to go, there's nothing to be said, and you must fall in with it whether you like it or no."

"But it can't be right for me to leave Roy when he wants me."

"It may be the best thing in the world for him and you, if it is to be. 'Tis a bad principle to determine whether a thing is right or wrong, according to our liking."

"It's a cruel thing to part us!" said Dudley, doggedly.

"But may be a way will be found out of the difficulty by Master Roy going with you."

"They say he isn't strong enough. That wetting in the rain has made him bad again."

"Well now I should ask the good Lord to make him strong enough. There's time between this and Easter."

Dudley brightened up at once.

"Do you think he might be strong enough? I should be able to take great care of him, and I would, too. And he's so plucky, that I'm sure the other boys would be good to him."

The cave was reached, and in the interest of watching excavation going on Dudley was soon his bright self again.

He came home radiant, with a match-box full of tiny shells for Roy who was waiting for him in the nursery.

"You have been away a time," he said, wearily: "I'm sure I'm well enough to go out now. I can't bear the winter. It means so many colds and aches."

"Well, you're going to get better very soon, and look here, old chap! If you try your very best, perhaps the old doctor will give you leave to come to school with me after Easter."

Roy's eyes sparkled at the thought.

"Nurse always makes such a molly-coddle of me, and so does granny; but I'll try as hard as I can to be better."

"And now just look at these! Old Principle says these show that the sea must have washed up amongst the hills and into his cave hundreds of years ago, for these belong to salt water fish not river ones. Look at them! 'Fossils' he calls them, they're shells made out of stone. He told me I might give you these from him. I thought he would never go back to his cave again after last December, but he says he feels so much stronger now; and he is very careful how he digs; he won't let me come near him while he does it. And he told me he has been busy writing a paper which he is going to send to some society in London—I forget its name. He is what you call a discoverer, isn't he?"

Roy nodded, then asked anxiously:

"Dudley, were you rude to granny before you went out? Aunt Judy came to look for you here, and she said she hoped you were going to beg granny's pardon for something."

"I'll go now, I had almost forgotten."

And Dudley trotted off to his grandmother's room. She received him sternly, but he was so abjectly penitent that she soon forgave him, and he returned to Roy with a relieved mind.

"It's a dreadful thing to have a temper," he remarked, as he sat upon the nursery table swinging his legs to and fro; "I've given granny an awful headache by the way I banged her door."

"What was it about?" asked Roy, with interest.

"About school," was the answer; "I told her I wasn't going away from you."

"I've been thinking of it a lot," said Roy, with a sigh; "but you'll have to go, and I shall get on pretty well without you. You see a boy with one leg wouldn't be much good amongst a lot of other boys. They would only call him a cripple and push him aside. I shouldn't like them to laugh at me. The only thing for me is a cripple school. Nurse has a little grandson at one. I don't much care for cripples, those I've seen seem very poor creatures with no fun in them, but of course I'm one myself now; only I don't feel like it."

"You're no more a cripple than I am," was Dudley's indignant rejoinder, "why no one would tell anything was the matter with you to look at you."

"We won't talk any more about it," said Roy, "I'm hungry and I hear tea coming."

But both the little hearts were very full of a possible separation, and for some days after it lay like a heavy nightmare on them. Then a letter arrived from Rob which turned the current of their thoughts. It was his first letter from India, and the boys looked at the foreign stamps and paper, as if it were the greatest rarity on earth.

"That's a much nicer letter, isn't it?" said Roy, in great delight; "that is quite as long as the one I sent him. I hope he will get some fighting soon."

"Supposing if he does, and gets killed?" suggested Dudley.

But Roy put this thought away from him.

"I've known such lots of soldiers in books that come home, that I think he will. Besides God will take care of him. Do you remember the picture gallery at the general's the other day, Dudley?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I was thinking about that soldier there with all his medals who broke his mother's heart; and then about the soldier boy the general said was the bravest. I suppose I would rather Rob was properly brave like that, than do great things in battle; but I should think he might do both, don't you think so?"

And Dudley nodded, adding, "Rob won't drink or gamble, I'm quite sure."

DAVID AND JONATHAN

Easter came, and to the boys' great delight Roy was so much stronger that it was settled he might accompany Dudley to a private boarding school for one term. Thanks were due to Miss Bertram for this arrangement; and she had great difficulty in obtaining her mother's consent to it.

"I am sure the boys will get on best together; Roy will have a better chance of growing strong if he is with Dudley than if he is to mope by himself here. If we find he does not keep well, we can have him home again; and from all we hear of the school, the boys are most carefully looked after."

And certainly to judge from Roy's appearance and spirits, this plan seemed most successful. It was a bright morning in April. The air was cold but dry, and the old garden was sweet with the scent of hyacinths and narcissuses. Bright beds of tulips and polyanthuses bordered the green lawn, and old Hal was surveying the results of his work with pride and satisfaction. Miss Bertram, in her leather gloves and garden apron, was busy in and out of the hothouses; and the boys, after scampering round in every one's way, had at last scrambled up to their favorite seat on the garden wall.

"This time next week we shall be at school," said Dudley; "how funny we shall feel!"

"We shan't be able to climb walls there, I suppose."

"On half-holidays, perhaps we shall. It isn't all lessons; old Selby told us the happiest time of his life was when he was at school."

"I mean to be happy," said Roy, a smile hovering about his lips.

"And so do I," maintained Dudley, stoutly; "but it will be awfully strange at first. It's like Rob going off to be a soldier. We're going out 'to see life' nurse says."

"Old Principle wants us to come to tea with him before we go. I saw him this morning going past our gate. He'll give us some of his good advice like he did Rob, but I don't mind him, he's such a jolly old chap."

There was silence between them for a few minutes. Dudley was eating a slice of cake which he had brought out of the house with him, and Roy was dreamily watching the figures of his aunt and the old gardener moving about amongst the bright colored flower beds.

"Dudley, we'll always keep friends, won't we?"

"Of course we will."

"But I dare say you'll have a lot of fellows at school who can get about quicker with you than I can; and I don't want to keep you back. I only want you to like me still best in your heart."

"Now look here, old chap! You know that I couldn't like any other fellow better than you. You're much more likely to have a lot of chums than I am, because you're so clever. Look at Rob; he used to think nothing of me at all, and I got to think you didn't want me with you, after he came."

"That was awful rot then, because we two are quite different to any other people. Only it would be a good thing to have a fresh promise together; a kind of Bible covenant, you know, before we go to school."

"All right, here goes, then! Let us have your fists—now then, hear me! I, Dudley Bertram, vow and declare that Fitz Roy Bertram shall continue to be my dearest and nearest chum from this time forth, forevermore. Amen."

Roy grasped Dudley's hands eagerly and earnestly, and repeated his vow in the same words, perhaps with additional emphasis; then with a sigh of relief, he turned to chatter of other things.

Shortly after Miss Bertram came up to them with a newspaper in her hand.

"Granny has just sent out this paper to me, boys. She thought you would like to know that the troops in the place where Rob is, have all been sent out on some expedition against a rebel chief in the mountains, so he will have some fighting now."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dudley, "don't I wish I was with him! Does the newspaper mention his name, Aunt Judy?"

"When shall we have a letter from him?"

"Not for some time yet, because this is telegraphed. It will be all over before we hear. We must hope and pray that Rob may be kept safely through it."

Miss Bertram looked grave, and the boys sobered down at once.

"But, Aunt Judy, of course fighting is dreadful, but it is a soldier's duty, isn't it?"

"And Rob is sure to do his duty."

"Yes, boys, we will hope he will serve his Queen as well as he served us whilst here. Rob was a good boy: I wish there were more like him."

And Miss Bertram moved away, whilst her little nephews worked off their excitement at this news, by jumping down from the wall, and performing a mimic battle in the pine wood outside. Very eagerly and impatiently did they look for a letter before they went off to school, but none came; and the last word that Roy said as he was leaving the house was,—

"Mind, Aunt Judy, you send on my letter when it comes as quick as lightning!"

It was rather an ordeal for both the boys when the last leave-takings of all at home came. The old nurse wept profusely, and was only comforted by the assurance that she should go to her charges on the very first intimation of illness. Mrs. Bertram gave them such warnings against choosing evil companions, and becoming depraved in principles, that the boys were quite awed and depressed; and the servants, one and all, expressed such pity and sympathy for their departure, that Dudley at last confided to Roy:

"If we were going to prison they couldn't look more shocked and gloomy."

General Newton insisted upon taking them himself to school.

"It looks well," he said to Miss Bertram, a little pompously; "for the boys to have a man at their back, and I will have a few words with the principal myself about Roy's delicacy of constitution. It will come with more force from me than from you."

So the general was allowed to have his way, and by the time the boys were in the train with a large packet of sandwiches and cakes to while away the time, their spirits rose, and they declared that going off to school was "the jolliest thing out."

It was late in the evening when they reached their destination. The school was not far from the sea, and the clergyman who kept it would never have more than thirty boarders; his wife, a sweet-faced gentlewoman, received the boys most kindly, and General Newton came away satisfied that it would prove a happy home as well as a good training for the motherless boys.

Dudley and Roy were not long in making themselves at home; their high spirits made them general favorites amongst the boys; and even Roy did not feel himself out of place in the playground, whilst in the schoolroom he proved a quick and intelligent pupil.

"The boys are happy, mother," said Miss Bertram one morning going into her mother's room and handing her two letters; "and Mrs. Hawthorn has written most favorably of them both."

"I should think so," said Mrs. Bertram, stiffly, who though sternness itself to her grandsons was most indignant if any one dared to say a word against them to her; "they would not be true Bertrams if they were not favorites with all."

She opened the letters and read—