"Danny!" cried Aunt Winnie, clutching her teacup with trembling hand. "God save us, it's Danny himself!"

"Nobody else," said Dan, as he caught her in a bearish hug and kissed the withered cheek again and again. It looked paler than when he had left her,--paler and thinner; and there were hollows under the patient eyes.

"But what are you doing here, Aunt Win?" he asked in amazement.

"Just spending the day, Danny. Mrs. Mulligan sent Molly for me this morning. She wanted me to see her new place, and to tell her what was to be done with my bit of things. She is thinking of renting her rooms, and my things are in the way. They are fine rooms, with rosebud paper on the walls, and a porch looking out at the church beyant; and she could be getting seven dollars a month for them. But she's got the table and stove and beds, and all our old furniture that nobody would want; so I've told her to send them off to-morrow to sell for what they will bring. Sure" (and the old voice trembled) "we'll never have any call for them again, Danny lad,--never again."

"Oh, we won't?" said Danny, with another hug that came near doing for teacup completely. "Just take back your orders quick as you can, Aunt Winnie, I'm renting those rooms right now."

"Sure, Danny,--Danny boy, have ye come back with a fever on ye?"

"Yes," grinned Dan,--"regular gold fever, Aunt Winnie! Look at that!" He clapped the twenty dollar gold piece into Aunt Winnie's trembling hand. "That's for you, Aunt Winnie,--that's to rent those pink-flowered rooms."

"Sure it's mad the poor boy is entirely!" cried Aunt Winnie, as Mrs. Mulligan and Molly came hurrying out on the porch.

"Do I look it?" asked Dan, laughing into their startled faces.

"Ye don't," said Mrs. Mulligan. "But spake out plain, and don't be bewildering the poor woman, Danny Dolan."

And then Danny spoke out as plain as his breathless eagerness would permit, and told the story of the "pension."

"It will be thirty-five dollars a month, Captain Carleton says; he'd have to throw in the five to poor old Nutty for grog and tobacco."

"Ah, God save us,--God save us!" was all Aunt Winnie could murmur, tearfully.

"And I guess thirty-five dollars will run those rosebud rooms of yours pretty safe and slick; won't they, Mrs. Mulligan? So put Aunt Winnie and me down as tenants right off."

"I will,--I will!" answered Mrs. Mulligan, joyfully. "Sure my heart was like lead in my breast at the thought of giving up yer bit of things, Miss Winnie. But now,--now come along, Molly girl, and we'll be fixing the rooms, this minute. What's the good of yer going back to the Sisters at all?" And Mrs. Mulligan put a motherly arm around Aunt Winnie's trembling form. "Give her another cup of tea, Molly; for she's all done up with joy at having her own home and her own boy again, thank God for that same!"

And then, leaving dear Aunt Winnie to this good friend's tender ministrations, Dan kept on his way to St. Andrew's, taking a flying leap over the college wall to the sunset walk, where perhaps he would find Father Mack saying his Office. He was not mistaken: his old friend was there, walking slowly under the arching trees. His face kindled into light as he stretched out a trembling hand.

"I thought perhaps you would come here, my boy," he said. "I was just thanking God, Danny. Brother Bart has told us the good news. It is all right, as I hoped and prayed,--all right, as I knew it would be, Danny. Now tell me, yourself, all about this wonderful blessing."

And again this father and son sat down upon the broken grave slab, and Danny told Father Mack all.

"Ah, it is the good God's hand!" the old priest said softly. "But this is only the start, my son. The climb is still before you,--a climb that may lead over steeps sharp and rough as the rocks of Killykinick."

But the fading light seemed to aureole Father Mack's silvery head as he spoke.

"You will keep on and up,--on and up; for God is calling you, my son,--calling you to heights where He leads His own--heights which as yet you can not see."

The speaker laid his hand upon Dan's head in benediction that thrilled the boy's heart to its deepest depths,--a benediction that he never forgot; for it was Father Mack's last. Only a few days later the college bell's solemn note, sounding over the merry greetings of the gathering students, told that for the good old priest all the lessons of life were over.

And Dan, climbing sturdily up the heights at his saintly guide's bidding, has found the way, so far, smoothed and softened beyond his hopes by his summer at Killykinick. Even his stumbling-stone Dud was removed to another college, his father having been ordered to a Western post. With Jim and Freddy as his friends, all the "high-steppers," old and young, of St. Andrew's were ready to welcome him into rank and line. And, with Aunt Winnie as administratrix of Captain Carleton's pension "there isn't a dacinter-looking boy in the college," as Mrs. Mulligan stoutly declares.

How Aunt Winnie stretched out that pension only the Irish fairies, or perhaps the Irish angels, know. The little pink-flowered rooms have blossomed out into a very bower of comfort and cheer. There are frilly curtains at the windows, a rosy-hued lamp, and a stand of growing plants always in bloom. There are always bread and cheese and apple sauce, or something equally "filling," for hungry boys to eat.

And when Aunt Winnie was fairly settled, who should appear but Miss Stella, who had come to nurse a dear old friend near by,--Miss Stella, who dropped in most naturally in her off hours to chat with dear old Aunt Winnie and take a cup of tea! And Freddy's daddy, who had plunged into life and law business with zest, often brought his big automobile round to take Freddy for a spin after study hours, and called on the way very frequently to take Miss Stella home.

It was on one of those bright afternoons that they all went to look at the new house that was going up on a wooded hillside not very far from the college--the house that was to be Freddy's long-wished-for home. It had been a lot of fun watching it grow. Now it was nearly done,--the big pillared porch ready for its climbing roses; the pretty rooms waiting their rugs and curtains; the great stone chimney, that was to be the heart and life of things, rising in the center of all.

"My! but this in fine!" said Freddy, who had not seen this crowning touch............