Dudley and Roy were eagerly helping and chattering as only boys know how.

“This little ravine has been formed by a mountain stream rushing down,” continued the old man, resting on his spade for a minute; “’tis a good principle, Master Dudley, to trust grown-up folks’ knowledge better than your own.”

[Illustration:  “Old Principle laughed at Dudley’s notion.”]

“I wish,” said Roy, reflectively, “that this cave was nearer home; it would be so lovely to come out whenever we wanted to, wouldn’t it, Dudley?  Perhaps some king has hidden away in it, or soldier when he was pursued by his enemies!”

“Hulloo,” said Dudley, looking up the hill; “here is such a funny looking woman coming down with a donkey, her skirt is nearly up to her knees, and she has a man’s boots on.”

Old Principle paused in his work, and in a minute or two greeted the newcomer.

“Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cullen, how’s your husband to-day?”

“Badly, very badly, but I’s forced to leave he.  I lock the door and put the key in me pocket, for I’s bin up the hill yonner cuttin’ peat sin seven o’clock this mornin’.  He do get awfu’ lonesome, he say, an’ if me niece hadn’t a married and gone to ’Merica, I should have kept she to tend him.”

“Who is she?” asked Roy, as after a few more words the woman moved on.

“She lives at the bottom of the hill over there.  Her husband has been ill of consumption these last two years, and she works to support them both.  She’s a hard-working woman, is Martha Cullen; she works in the fields harvesting just now; if I could feel I’d be welcome I would go to sit with her husband sometimes, but she’s very queer, she won’t let a neighbor come near him, I have tried more than once.  It seems hard on him to be bedridden there day after day without a soul to speak to; or any one to give him a drink!”

Roy gazed thoughtfully after the retreating figure of the woman, and then turned his attention again to the cave.

When an hour later he and Dudley were walking home footsore, and rather dirty, but with little bundles of treasures from the cave in their grubby hands, he startled his cousin by saying—­

“To-morrow we’ll go and see Martha Cullen’s husband.  It’s an opportunity for us.”

“How shall we get in?” queried Dudley.

“Climb in at the window.  She told old Principle she would be out all day at Farmer Stubbs.  We’ll go and do him good.”

“How?”

“We’ll wash his face, and make him a cup of tea, and sweep his room, and give him his medicine,” responded Roy, readily; “that’s what nurse does when she goes to visit any of Aunt Judy’s sick people.”

Dudley did not look as if he relished the prospect before him.

“That’s girls’ and women’s work,” he said; “boys needn’t do that kind of thing.”

Roy flushed up angrily.

“All right, if you don’t want to come, stay at home.  It is a week since we started to do good when the opportunity came, and we haven’t done any good to any one.  I’m not going to waste any more time.”