elf the athletic champion.

"Don't forget the ices!" whispered Bessie, as Winona rejoined Marjorie
and Joyce.

"We'll stop at the cafe on the way home, and you shall each choose what
you like!" declared Winona, with spendthrift liberality.

CHAPTER XVII

Back to the Land

Easter fell late, so Winona spent the lovely early part of May at her
own home. After so many weeks of town it was delightful to be once more
in the country. She worked with enthusiasm in the garden, mowed the
lawn, and with Letty and Mamie's help began to put up an arbor, over
which she hoped to persuade a crimson rambler to ramble successfully. In
the house she tried her hand at scones and cakes, entirely to the
children's satisfaction, if not altogether to her own; she enjoyed
experiments in cooking, for she had longed to join the Domestic Science
class at school, and had felt aggrieved when Miss Bishop decided that
her time-table was full enough without it. She found her mother looking
delicate and worried. Poor Mrs. Woodward's health had not improved
during the last two years; she was nervous, anxious about Percy, and
inclined to be fretful and tearful. The increased income-tax and the
added cost of living made her constantly full of financial cares; she
was not a very good manager, and the thought of the future oppressed
her.

"I don't know what's to be done with you, Winona, when you leave
school!" she remarked plaintively one evening. "I feel that you ought to
go in for something, but I'm sure I don't know what! I'd hoped you were
going to turn out clever, and win a scholarship for College, and get a
good post as a teacher afterwards, but there doesn't seem the least
chance of your doing that. It's all very well this hockey and cricket
that's made such a fuss of at schools nowadays, but it doesn't seem to
me that it's going to lead to anything. I'd rather you stuck to your
books! Yes, your future's worrying me very much. I've all these little
ones to bring up and educate, and I'd hoped you'd be able to earn your
own living before long, and lend the children a helping hand. I can't
spend anything on giving you an expensive training, Percy has cost me so
much out of capital, and it's Letty's turn next, besides which it's high
time Ernie and Godfrey were packed off to a boarding-school. Oh, dear! I
never seem free from trouble! It's no light anxiety to be the mother of
seven children! I often wonder what will become of you all!"