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 fact the document is safe at my lawyer’s.  The paper which Percy destroyed was only a rough draft.  I had forgotten its existence.”

“But you do believe me?” urged Winona.  “You know I had none of those horrible plans?  Oh, dear Aunt Harriet, money is nothing, nothing!  It is you yourself I love, if you’ll only let me!”

And in the dusk of the garden, Winona, for the first time in her life, flung her warm young arms round her aunt and hugged her heartily.

CHAPTER XXI

The End of the Term

“Look here, my hearties!” said Winona to the cricket team.  “Do you realize that Seaton versus Binworth is on Wednesday week?  If you don’t, it’s time you did, and you’d better buck up!  My opinion of you at this present moment is that you’re a set of loafers!  What are you doing lounging about here, when you ought to be practicing for all you’re worth?”

The little group sitting on the grass under the lilac bushes smiled indulgently.

“Go ahead!  Lay it on thick!” twittered Betty Carlisle.  “We knew when you hove into sight that we might expect some jaw-wag!”

“It’s all very fine to sermonize,” yawned Maggie Allesley, “but you’d oblige me very much by going indoors and inspecting the thermometer in the hall.”

“One can’t tear about in this heat!” added Irene Swinburne.

“What a set of dainty Sybarites you are!  No one would ever win matches if they waited for the right kind of day to practice.  It’s always too hot or too cold or too wet, or too something!”

“Well, to-day it’s decidedly too something!  Don’t roast us!”

“But I shall roast you!  D’you mean to let Binworth have a complete walk-over?  I’ll tell you what—­if you can’t or won’t play during the heat, will you all come back to school for an hour every evening, and practice then?  I’d square it up with Miss Bishop.  I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

“There’s sense in your remarks now,” admitted Irene, sitting up.  “I’m game, if others are!”