overs and accounts for a good deal."

Then Winston recognized them, and made a sign to one of the men behind
him as he hauled his binder clear of the wheat. He had dismounted in
another minute, and came towards them, with the jacket he had not
wholly succeeded in struggling into, loose about his shoulders.

"It is almost time I gave my team a rest," he said, "Will you come with
me to the house?"

"No," said Colonel Barrington. "We only stopped in passing. The crop
will harvest well."

"Yes," said Winston, turning with a little smile to Miss Barrington.
"Better than I expected, and prices are still moving up. You will
remember, madam, who it was wished me good fortune. It has undeniably
come!"

"Then," said the white-haired lady, "next year I will do as much again,
though it will be a little unnecessary, because you have my good wishes
all the time. Still, you are too prosaic to fancy they can have
anything to do with--this."

She pointed to the wheat, but, though Winston smiled again, there was a
curious expression in his face as he glanced at her niece.

"I certainly do, and your good-will has made a greater difference than
you realize to me," he said.

Miss Barrington looked at him steadily. "Lance," she said, "there is
something about you and your speeches that occasionally puzzles me.
Now, of course, that was the only rejoinder you could make, but I
fancied you meant it."

"I did," said Winston, with a trace of grimness in his smile. "Still,
isn't it better to tell any one too little rather than too much?"

"Well," said Miss Barrington, "you are going to be franker with me by
and by. Now, my brother has been endeavoring to convince us that you
owe your success to qualities inherited from bygone Courthornes."

Winston did not answer for a moment, and then he laughed. "I fancy
Colonel Barrington is wrong," he said. "Don't you think there are
latent capabilities in every man, though only one here and there gets
an opportunity of using them? In any case, wouldn't it be pleasanter
for any one to feel that his virtues were his own and not those of his
family?"

Miss Barrington's eyes twinkled, but she shook her head. "That," she
said, "would be distinctly wrong of him, but I fancy it is time we were
getting on."

In another few minutes Colonel Barrington took up the reins, and as
they drove slowly past the wheat, his niece had another view of the
toiling teams. They were moving on tirelessly