"Why, Winn," she exclaimed, springing to her feet and kissing him fondly, "what has brought you to the city, and why didn't you tell me you were coming? Or did you want to surprise the old lady?" And Winn, a little proud of his financial success, answered: "I came here two days ago to surprise Weston & Hill, and succeeded. So much so that Weston has left for parts unknown, and I am twenty thousand dollars richer for the surprise. I had to keep in hiding two days to do it, however." And then a greater surprise came to Winn. "Mr. Weston run away," gasped his aunt, growing pale and oblivious to Winn's twenty-thousand-dollar assertion. "What do you mean, Winn?" "I mean," he answered coolly, "just what I say. Weston has robbed his partner and left the town! The Rockhaven Granite Company gone to smash! Stock not worth a copper, and there you are! But I'm all right, auntie," he added cheerfully, "you can't lose me." And then a scene came. For a moment Winn's aunt looked at him, her eyes dilated, mouth open. "The--company--gone--to--smash!" she exclaimed slowly, as the awful news forced its way into her brain. Then she seemed to reel a moment, and the next sank to her knees beside a chair, her face in the cushion. "Oh, my God," she moaned, "I am ruined, ruined, ruined!" And Winn, half guessing the cause of his aunt's despair, was beside her in an instant. "What do you mean, auntie?" he begged. "What do you mean?" "All my money," she sobbed, "all my money has gone! Twenty thousand, all I had, gone, gone, gone!" And she moaned again. Winn, rising, glanced at the table where only magazines and religious papers lay, and at his aunt, still sobbing at his feet, and then a light came to him. And it must be recorded, a curse as hearty as it was profane rose to his lips, and the name of J. Malcolm Weston was linked with it. For Winn had known how his aunt had trusted and believed in Weston, and now the outcome of it was plain. A moment more only did he look at the woe-begone woman at his feet, and then he turned and left the room, and went to his own upstairs. Many of us in this world do selfish things, a few of us do mean ones; but not to one in a thousand does the chance come to do a heroic one, and when it comes, not one in ten is equal to it. We think, we excuse, we evade, we haggle with our conscience and selfish impulses, and in the end self wins the day. But Winn, fresh from the island, where simple good will to all men ruled supreme, and the heart-offering of Jess Hutton still warming his own, was in the spirit for heroism. As he sat down to think in his own room, all the years that this good aunt had been a mother to him came back. She was simple, she was over-pious, she believed all to be like herself,--good, kind, and true. And to Winn she had been all that a motherly woman could be.