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“That boy has got something on his mind,” said the terrible Clemantiny, who, Chester felt convinced, could see through a stone wall.

“Nonsense! What could he have on his mind?” said Miss Salome. But she said it a little anxiously. She, too, had noticed Chester’s absent ways and abstracted face.

“Goodness me, I don’t know! I don’t suppose he has robbed a bank or murdered anybody. But he is worrying over something, as plain as plain.”

“He is getting on very well at school,” said Miss Salome. “His teacher says so, and he is very eager to learn. I don’t know what can be troubling him.”

She was fated not to know for a fortnight longer. During that time Chester fought out his struggle with himself, and conquered. He must tell Miss Salome, he decided, with a long sigh. He knew that it would mean going back to Upton and Aunt Harriet and the old, hard life, but he would not sail under false colours any longer.

* * * * *

Chester went into the kitchen one afternoon when he came home from school, with his lips set and his jaws even squarer than usual. Miss Salome was making some of her famous taffy, and Clemantiny was spinning yarn on the big wheel.

“Miss Salome,” said Chester desperately, “if you’re not too busy, there is something I’d like to tell you.”

“What is it?” asked Miss Salome good-humouredly, turning to him with her spoon poised in midair over her granite saucepan.

“It’s about myself. I–I–oh, Miss Salome, I didn’t tell you the truth about myself. I’ve got to tell it now. My name isn’t Benson–exactly–and I ran away from home.”

“Dear me!” said Miss Salome mildly. She dropped her spoon, handle and all, into the taffy and never noticed it. “Dear me, Chester!”

“I knew it,” said Clemantiny triumphantly. “I knew it–and I always said it. Run away, did you?”

“Yes’m. My name is Chester Benson Stephens, and I lived at Upton with Aunt Harriet Elwell. But she ain’t any relation to me, really. She’s only father’s stepsister. She–she–wasn’t kind to me and she wouldn’t let me go to school–so I ran away.”

“But, dear me, Chester, didn’t you know that was very wrong?” said Miss Salome in bewilderment.

“No’m–I didn’t know it then. I’ve been thinking lately that maybe it was. I’m–I’m real sorry.”

“What did you say your real name was?” demanded Clemantiny.

“Stephens, ma’am.”

“And your mother’s name before she was married?”

“Mary Morrow,” said Chester, wondering what upon earth Clemantiny meant.

Clemantiny turned to Miss Salome with an air of surrendering a dearly cherished opinion.

“Well, ma’am, I guess you must be right about his looking like Johnny. I must say I never could see the resemblance, but it may well be there, for he–that very fellow there–and Johnny are first cousins. Their mothers were sisters!”

“Clemantiny!” exclaimed Miss Salome.

“You may well say ‘Clemantiny.’ Such a coincidence! It doesn’t make you and him any relation, of course–the cousinship is on the mother’s side. But it’s there. Mary Morrow was born and brought up in Hopedale. She went to Upton when I did, and married Oliver Stephens there. Why, I knew his father as well as I know you.”

“This is wonderful,” said Miss Salome. Then she added sorrowfully, “But it doesn’t make your running away right, Chester.”

“Tell us all about it,” demanded Clemantiny, sitting down on the wood-box. “Sit down, boy, sit down–don’t stand there looking as if you were on trial for your life. Tell us all about it.”

Thus adjured, Chester sat down and told them all about it–his moonlight flitting and his adventures in Montrose. Miss Salome exclaimed with horror over the fact of his sleeping in a pile of lumber for seven nights, but Clemantiny listened in silence, never taking her eyes from the boy’s pale face. When Chester finished, she nodded.