Miss Van Gerder drew a deep breath. "I shall never forgive myself for the mischief I have done, but I will do my best to repair it. Let me tell you what I know of Margaret's family. In the first place, Mr. Worthington was my great-uncle, and I visited at his Chicago home very often, so that is the way I came to know Margaret. I never saw very much of her, for she was in school or busy helping her mother, and, of course, I was going to teas and receptions, and such things, when I was there, although I wasn't much more than a child. Mrs. Hamilton was uncle's housekeeper for years, and after his wife died, he depended on her entirely for things not often entrusted to a servant. He had no children. Mrs. Hamilton was a farmer's daughter; she is a good, sensible, honest woman. She has always been very ambitious for Margaret, and that is not strange, for Margaret has a fine intellect. She inherits it from her father. He was a farmer's boy and came from the same locality as Mrs. Hamilton. They knew each other as children, and went to the same district school. There Mrs. Hamilton's education stopped. Mr. Hamilton, however, had made up his mind, as a boy, to go to West Point. He had no political influence to help him, so he studied with all his energy and might. He finally went to the city, obtained employment at a boarding-house to do work out of schooltime, and so he managed to gain a thorough foundation. He knew that his only chance of getting to West Point at all, lay in his ability to outdistance other boys in a competitive examination. So I suppose no boy ever studied harder than did he."