ut into prison, would
you? Then hold your tongue about it! Give me your word! Can you keep a
secret?"

"I promise!" gasped Winona (Percy was squeezing her little finger nail
in orthodox fashion and the agony was acute). "I promise faithfully."

She was in a terrible quandary. Her natural straightforwardness urged
her to make a clean breast of the whole affair. Had she been the actual
transgressor she would certainly have done so and faced the
consequences. But this was Percy's secret, not her own. He was no
favorite with his aunt, and so outrageous an act would prejudice him
fatally in her eyes. The hint about prison frightened Winona. She knew
nothing of law, but she thought it highly probable that burning a will
was a punishable crime. Suppose Aunt Harriet's rigid conscience obliged
her to communicate with the police and deliver Percy into the hands of
justice. Such a horrible possibility must be avoided at all costs. The
sound of a latch-key in the door made her start. In a panic she rushed
to the old cupboard and pushed back the secret drawer into its place.
When Miss Beach entered the dining-room her nephew and niece were
sitting reading by the fireside. Their choice of literature might
perhaps have astonished her, for Percy was poring over Sir Oliver
Lodge's "Man and the Universe," while Winona's nose was buried in
Herbert Spencer's "Sociology," but if indeed she noticed it, she perhaps
set it down to a laudable desire to improve their minds, and placed the
matter to their credit. Percy took his departure next morning, and
Winona saw him off at the railway station.

"Remember, you've to keep that business dark," he reminded her. "Aunt
Harriet must never find out. She's been jawing me no end about
responsibility, and looking after the kids and supporting the mater and
all that. Rubbed it in hard, I can tell you! Great Juggins! Do I look
like the mainstay of a family?"

As Winona watched his boyish face laughing at her from the window of the
moving train she decided that he certainly did not. She sighed as she
turned to leave the station. Life seemed suddenly to have assumed new
perplexities. Percy's act weighed heavily on her mind. It seemed such a
base return for all Aunt Harriet was doing on their behalf. She longed
to thank her for her kindness and say how much she appreciated going to
the High School, but she could not find the words. Theknowledge of the
secret raised an extra barrier between herself and he