Winner Stories

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Erica's heart gave a bound. The familiar name, the consciousness
that her wretched loneliness was at an end, and above all, the
instantaneous perception of the speaker's nobility and breadth of
mind, scattered for the time all her resentful thoughts made her
again her best self.
Then you must be Donovan! she exclaimed, with the quaint and
winsome frankness which was one of her greatest charms. I knew I
was sure you were not like other people.
He took her hand in his, and no longer wondered at Brian's seven
years' hopeless waiting. But Erica began to realize that her
exclamation had been appallingly unconventional, and the beautiful
color deepened in her cheeks.
I beg your pardon, she said, remembering with horror that he was
not only a stranger but an M.P., I I don't know what made me say
that, but they have always spoken of you by your Christian name,
and you have so long been 'Donovan' in my mind that somehow it
slipped out you didn't feel like a stranger.
I am glad of that, he said, his dark and strangely powerful eyes
looking right into hers. Something in that look made her feel
positively akin to him. Like a stranger! Of course he had not
felt like one. Never could be like anything but a friend. You
see, he continued, we have known of each other for years, and we
know that we have one great bond of union which others have not.
Don't retract the 'Donovan' I like it. Let it be the outward sign
of the real and unusual likeness in the fight we have fought.
She still half hesitated. He was a man of fiveandthirty, and she
could not get over the feeling that her impulsive exclamation had
been presumptuous. He saw her uncertainty, and perhaps liked her
the better for it, though the delicious naturalness, the childlike
recognition of a real though scarcely known friend, had delighted
him.
We are a little more brother and sister than the rest of the
world, he said, with the chivalrous manner which seemed to belong
naturally to his peculiarly noble face. And if I were to confess
that I had not always thought of you as 'Miss Raeburn' He paused, and Erica laughed. It was absurd to stand on ceremony
with this kindred spirit.
Have you seen the conservatory? he asked. Shall we come in
there? I want to hear all about the Osmonds.
The relief of speaking with one who knew and loved Charles Osmond,
and did not, for want of real knowledge, brand him with the names
of half a dozen heresies, was very great. It was not for some time
that Erica even glanced at the lovely surroundings, though she had

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