selfish things, a few of us do mean ones;
but not to one in a thousand does the chance come to do a heroic one,
and when it comes, not one in ten is equal to it. We think, we excuse,
we evade, we haggle with our conscience and selfish impulses, and in the
end self wins the day.

But Winn, fresh from the island, where simple good will to all men ruled
supreme, and the heart-offering of Jess Hutton still warming his own,
was in the spirit for heroism. As he sat down to think in his own room,
all the years that this good aunt had been a mother to him came back.
She was simple, she was over-pious, she believed all to be like
herself,--good, kind, and true. And to Winn she had been all that a
motherly woman could be.

Only for a moment did he hesitate, and then he wrote a check for the
small fortune he owned for a day, and descending the stairs, handed it
to his aunt.

"Come, auntie," he said cheerfully, "don't shed any more tears over that
accursed Weston. You have been a good mother to me for many years, and
here is your money back."

Then he swallowed a lump in his own throat and turned away.

Over the scene that followed a veil shall be drawn.

That evening at the tea-table, Winn, almost beyond praise now in his
aunt's estimation, told the story of his summer on Rockhaven and what
manner of people he found there, their ways of living, and all about
them, even to their dress. The little church and its poorly paid
minister, whose simple and touching prayers had reached Winn's heart as
none had before, were also mentioned; even the two bells answering one
another across the island at eventide, and the new influence upon his
life and thoughts they had wrought, were spoken of. Quaint old Jess with
his fiddle came in for a share, and the ancient tide mill and its
history as well. The old tower, the bold, frowning cliffs, and the gorge
with the Devil's Oven opening into it were described. All the island, in
fact, and all it contained, except--Mona. And when, late that evening,
Winn's aunt kissed him good night and retired to her room, she knelt
down and thanked God, who had opened her heart to care for this son of
her dead sister.

In a different mood when he reached his room, and conscious that his
life's fortunes had yet to be wrought, Winn sat down and wrote to Mona.
And so strange a love letter was it, and so misunderstood by her, that
it must be given here.

"Dear little Sweetheart," he wrote, "my life and