an. "Then you'll have a fine time. And I am
depending on you to look out for the other boys. They have grown up in
softer ways, and are not used to roughing it, as it is likely you will
have to rough it at Killykinick. But it will be good for you all,--for you
all," repeated the speaker cheerily, as he saw in Dan's brightening face
the joyful relief the boy did not know how to speak. "And you will come
back ready for double 'X' work in the fall. I am looking for great things
from you, Dan. You've made a fine start, my boy! Keep it up, and some day
you will be signing all the capital letters to Dan Dolan's name that Saint
Andrew's can bestow."

"Sure I don't know about that, Father," said Dan, his speech softening
into Aunt Winnie's Irish tones with the warming of his heart. "You're very
good to me, but sometimes I think--well, what I thrashed Dud Fielding for
telling me: that I've no right to be pushing into a grand school like
this. I ought to keep my place."

"And where is your place?" was the calm question.

"Sure, sure--" Dan hesitated as he recalled a very checkered childhood.
"Now that Aunt Winnie is all broke up, I can't say, Father."

"Then I will tell you, my boy! Just now, by the goodness and guidance of
God, it is here,--here, where you have equal rights with any boy in the
school. You have won them in winning your scholarship; they are yours as
justly as if you had a father paying a thousand a year. There may be a
little rough rubbing now and then from fellows like Dud Fielding;
but--well, everything that is worth having has its cost. So stand to your
colors! Be, as you said yesterday, neither a bully nor a coward, but a
man. Now go to see Aunt Winnie and bid her good-bye. Tell her I am sending
you off for the jolliest kind of a holiday to Killykinick."

"I--I don't know how to thank you, Father!" stammered Dan, feeling that
his blackened sky had suddenly burst into rainbow light.

"Don't try," was the kind answer. "I understand, Dan. God bless you, my
boy!"

And, laying his hand for a moment on Dan's sandy thatch of hair, Father
Regan dismissed the case.

IV.--AUNT WINNIE.

It was a delighted Dan that bounded down the broad staircase and took a
flying leap from the stone portico of the great hall door.

"Hello!" said Jim Norris, who was lazily stretched on the grass, reading.
"Is that a jump or a kick out?"

"A jump," answered Dan, grinning: "though I was primed for the other,
sure. How