“That’s it,” rejoined the boy proudly, lifting a bit of sacking from the contents of the opened crate, “isn’t it a beauty?”
The lifted covering had exposed a gleam of bright, scarlet enamel, and the glint of polished brass. To Roy the contents of that crate was the splendid new motor for his aeroplane. But to Peggy, just then, it was something far different. A bit of a mist dimmed her shining eyes for an instant. Her voice grew very sober.
“Three thousand dollars—oh, Roy, it scares me!”
Roy crossed the shed and threw an arm about his sister’s neck.
“Don’t be frightened, sis,” he breathed in an assuring tone, “it’s going to be all right. Why, can’t you see that the very first thing that happens is a chance to win $5,000?”
“I know that. But that contest is not to come off for more than a month and—and supposing someone should have a better machine than you?”
For an instant that air of absolute assurance, which truth to tell, had made Roy some enemies, and which was his greatest fault, left him. His face clouded and he looked troubled. But it was as momentary as the cloud-shadow that passes over a summer wheat field.
“It’ll be all right, sis,” he rejoined, confidently, “and if it isn’t, I can always sell out to Simon Harding. You know he said that his offer held good at any time.”
“I know that, Roy,” rejoined Peggy, seriously, “but we could never do that. We could neither of us go against father’s wishes like that. He—well, Roy, it’s not to be thought of. Poor dad––”
Her bright eyes filled with tears as her mind travelled back to a scene of a year before when Mr. Prescott had ceased from troubling with the affairs of this world, and commended his children to the care of their maiden aunt—his sister with whom, since their mother’s death some years before, the little family had made their home.