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 with their leader in
front of them, and the rasp of the knives, trample of hoofs, and clash
of the binders' wooden arms once more stirred her. She had heard those
sounds often before, and attached no significance to them, but now she
knew a little of the stress and effort that preceded them, she could
hear through the turmoil the exultant note of victory.
Then the wagon rolled more slowly up the rise, and had passed from view
behind it, when a mounted man rode up to Winston with an envelope in
his hand.
"Mr. Macdonald was in at the settlement and the telegraph clerk gave it
him," he said. "He told me to come along with it.
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