CHAPTER V.
Aunt Harriet It is high time now that we paused to consider a very important person indeed in this story, namely Miss Harriet Beach, but for whose invitation Winona would never have attended Seaton High School at all.
Aunt Harriet was what is generally known as "a character," that is to say, she was possessed of a strong personality, and was decidedly eccentric.

Though her age verged on sixty she preserved the energy of her thirties, and prided herself upon her physical fitness.

She was tall, with a high color, keen brown eyes, a large nose, a determined mouth, and iron gray hair.

In her youth she must have been handsome, and even now her erect figure and dark, well-marked eyebrows gave her a certain air of distinction.

She was a most thoroughly capable woman, reliable, and strongly philanthropic: not in a sentimental way, however; she disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, and would have considered it a crime to bestow a penny on a beggar without making a proper investigation of his case.