“She might ask us to tea,” suggested Roy, “and she has awfully nice cake always going.  I’ll leave my pony here, and we’ll call again for them on our way back.”

“I don’t like paying visits,” objected Dudley, a little crossly.

“But Mrs. Ford isn’t half bad to talk to, she’s full of stories.”

And by dint of these two baits, “cake” and “stories,” Dudley’s shyness was overcome, and the two boys were soon walking up a sunny little garden and knocking at the rose-covered door of “Clematis Cottage.”

It was a tiny house, but spotlessly clean and tidy, and the long, low, dainty drawing-room into which they were shown had a sense of rest and repose which insensibly affected even the boys’ restless spirits.

“A nice room to be ill in,” was Roy’s comment; “there would be such a lot of jolly pictures and things to look at on the walls when you were in bed.”

“I should like to sit here on Sunday,” said Dudley.  “I am sure I could be still for quite half an hour!”

The door opened and a little old lady in widow’s cap and gown came forward.  She was a fragile, delicate-looking little woman, with a very bright face and smile, and she beamed upon the boys delightedly.

“My dear boys, this is quite a treat!  I don’t often get a visit from young gentlemen.  How is your grandmother?  Have you brought me any message from your aunt?”

“Granny is not very well to-day,” replied Roy, frankly, “and Aunt Judy didn’t know we were coming here.  We have been riding, and Dudley’s pony has had to be shod, so we’ve left him at the blacksmith’s and come on here.  You see we thought it would pass the time.”

“And so it will, and you shall have a nice cup of tea before you go back.  Why, what big boys you are growing!  Which is the elder?  I always forget.”

“I am,” said Roy, a little shamefacedly; “but of course most people think Dudley is, because he is the biggest.”

“It’s only two months and five days, though, between us,” put in Dudley, eagerly, knowing what a sore point his size was to Roy; “and you see, Mrs. Ford, Roy’s brain is much bigger than mine—­Mr. Selby says it is, so that makes us quits!”

“And I wonder which has the biggest soul?” said Mrs. Ford, quaintly.

The boys stared at her.

“Shall I tell you a little story while we are waiting for tea?” she asked, sitting down in her easy chair by the open window, and looking first at the boys with loving interest, and then away to the sweet country outside her garden.

Roy gave Dudley a delighted nudge with his elbow.

“Yes, please; we love a good rattling story; and make plenty of adventures in it, won’t you?”

But Mrs. Ford shook her head with a little smile.

“I can’t tell you of fights with red Indians, and shipwrecks, and lion hunts, and all such things as that; but you must take my story as it is, and think over it in your quiet moments.