ing to do, Rob?" asked Roy, eagerly, after their first
greetings had been exchanged; "you aren't going home again?"

"I'd sooner be shot," was the short reply.

"I've been talking to Aunt Judy about you again this morning, and she
says if you would like to help our old gardener in the garden and could
get a character from some one, she'd try you. I don't quite know what
she means about the character. I thought that belonged to you and not to
any one else. She says she doesn't know what you're like, but I told her
I'd find out. I say, take a chair, won't you. Now then, you don't mind
my asking you a few questions, do you? Are you a thief?"

Rob took the chair that was offered him, squared his shoulders, and
looked up with a pleasant smile at this blunt question.

"No, I ain't that."

"Have you ever killed anybody?"

"No."

"Are you a drunkard?"

"I hate the stuff!"

"Are you a fighter?"

"Well, no, not a reg'lar one. I can't say I've never knocked a feller
down, or squared up with him a bit, but I don't fight till I'm driven to
it."

"Are you a liar?"

"No."

Roy drew a sigh of relief, then continued: "Well, if you aren't any of
those, I'm sure Aunt Judy will have you, I told her I knew you weren't
wicked."

"But I ain't no scholar," said Rob, doubtfully; "I can't write nor read,
and that's against a feller!"

"Oh, well, you won't have to read and write much in the garden. Old Hal
can't read either, and he makes a cross for his name when he has to
write it. But I suppose you can learn, can't you?"

Rob nodded.

"You see I played truant mostly when I was sent to school, and then I
began to mind the cattle soon after I were eight year old, but if any
body would start me, I believe I could pick it up."

"I'll teach you myself when I've nothing else to do," said Roy, grandly;
"for I want you to be clever. I want you to come with me, when I'm grown
up, to my big house. You shall be my head servant, and live with me
always. Would you like that?"

Rob grinned, and seemed to think it a great joke.

Roy continued: "Of course I shall want you more when Dudley goes away.
He has got a stepfather, so when he grows up he will go out to India, I
expect, to live with him, but we don't talk of it, and we pretend we're
never going to leave each other. Did you find Dudley very much heavier
to carry than me?"

"Well, yes, he were a bit heavier."

"I'm afraid I shall never catch him up, he is nearly a head tall