apton Junction, however, they
were obliged to change to a local line, and jog along at the rate of
about thirty miles an hour in a particularly dusty compartment. It had
been a hard day for Miss Beach. She looked very weary as she leaned back
in her corner, so overdone indeed that Winona was afraid she was going
to have one of her heart attacks. The threatened trouble passed,
however, and as the evening grew cooler she seemed to revive. The trains
were late, so it was nearly ten o'clock before they at last reached
home.

"'Mighty pleased with our day's outing,' to quote Mr. Pepys," said Aunt
Harriet. "It was worth going!"

"If it hasn't tired you too much!" Winona ventured to add.

On the following Sunday morning Miss Beach received a letter from Percy.
She made no comment upon it at the time, but in the evening, after
church, when she and Winona were walking in the garden in the twilight,
she referred to it.

"I'm deeply touched by Percy's letter," she remarked. "I did not think
the boy had such nice feeling in him. You understand, of course, what he
has written to me about?"

"Oh, Aunt Harriet, has he told you?" burst out Winona. "Oh, I'm so very,
very glad! I've been longing and yearning to tell you all these years,
only I couldn't, because I'd promised--and--oh, I must tell you now--I
asked you about your will--and you thought I was horrid and
scheming--but it wasn't that at all--it was that I thought you ought to
know the will wasn't there, and hoped that perhaps you'd look! Oh,
please believe me that I didn't mean to hint that you should leave
anything to me! I don't want anything! You've been so good to me! I owe
you a thousand times more than I can ever pay back. I've always wanted
to make you understand this, but somehow I couldn't. Thank you, thank
you, thank you for all you've done for me! I shall be better all my life
for having lived with you and known you. I'm a different person since I
came to Seaton, and I owe it entirely to you!"

The barrier was down at last. For once Winona spoke straight from her
heart. Miss Beach took off her pince-nez, wiped them, and put them in
their case. Her hand was trembling.

"I wish I had known this before, child!" she said, with a break in her
voice. "Here for nearly two years I have been thinking hard things of
you, and imagining that you were plotting and scheming to get my money.
You hurt me beyond expression when you asked if I had made my will. As a
matter of