After the Christmas holidays Winona returned to Abbey Close.  Miss Beach was installed once more in her own home, though under strict orders from the doctor not to over-exert herself.  During her stay at Harrogate she had bought a small two-seater car, and had learnt to drive it.  She kept it at a garage in the town, and used it almost every day.  It was invaluable to her as a means of getting about.  She was anxious not to relinquish all her work in Seaton, but she could not now bear the fatigue of walking.  In her car distance was no obstacle, and she could continue her inspection of boarded-out workhouse children, attend babies’ clinics in country villages beyond the city area, visit the wives of soldiers and sailors, regulate the orphanage, and superintend the Tipperary Club.  Miss Beach’s energetic temperament made her miserable unless fully occupied, so, the doctor having forbidden her former strenuous round of duties, she adopted the car as a compromise, assuring him that she would limit her list to a few of her pet schemes only.  It was probably her wisest course.  It is very hard for elderly people to be laid on the shelf, and to feel that their services are set aside.  Miss Beach had lived so entirely in her various philanthropic occupations, that to give everything up would have been a severe mental shock.  As it was, she managed to obey medical orders, and at the same time, to a certain extent, keep her old place in the work of the city.

As the days became longer and lighter, she sometimes took her great-niece with her in the car.  Winona had really very little time out of school hours; her duties as Games Captain were paramount, and hockey practices and matches absorbed most of her holiday afternoons.  When she had an occasional free hour, however, it was an immense treat to go motoring.  She loved the feeling of spinning along through the country lanes.  It was delightful to see new places and fresh roads.  Seaton was in the midst of a beautiful district, and there were charming villages, woods, and lovely views of scenery within easy distance.

One Saturday, when for a wonder there was no event at school, Miss Beach suddenly suggested that they should start in the car, take a luncheon basket with them, and explore some of the country in the neighborhood.  It was a glorious spring morning, with a clear pale blue sky, and a touch of warmth in the sunshine that set winter to flight, and brought the buds out on the trees.  On such a day the human sap, too, seems to rise, there is an exhilaration, physical and spiritual, when we long to run or to sing for the sheer vital joy of living, when our troubles don’t seem to matter, and the future looks rosy, and for the moment we feel transferred to the golden age of the poets, when the world was young, and Pan played his pipes in the meadows among the asphodels.  Winona, at any rate, was in an ecstatic frame of mind, and though Aunt Harriet did not openly express her enthusiasm,