Her Father's Daughter.......................................................................................................................................1

Gene StrattonPorter...............................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. "What Kind of Shoes Are the Shoes You Wear?"...........................................................2

CHAPTER II. Cotyledon of Multiflores Canyon...................................................................................9

CHAPTER III. The House of Dreams..................................................................................................13

CHAPTER IV. Linda Starts a Revolution............................................................................................22

CHAPTER V. The Smoke of Battle.....................................................................................................27

CHAPTER VI. Jane Meredith..............................................................................................................30

CHAPTER VII. Trying Yucca ..............................................................................................................34

CHAPTER VIII. The Bear Cat.............................................................................................................37

CHAPTER IX. One Hundred Per Cent Plus .........................................................................................42

CHAPTER X. Katy to the Rescue........................................................................................................49

CHAPTER XI. Assisting Providence...................................................................................................56

CHAPTER XII. The Lay of the Land ...................................................................................................58

CHAPTER XIII. Leavening the Bread of Life.....................................................................................66

CHAPTER XIV. Saturday's Child ........................................................................................................72

CHAPTER XV. Linda's Hearthstone ....................................................................................................81

CHAPTER XVI. Producing the Evidence ............................................................................................84

CHAPTER XVII. A Rock and a Flame ................................................................................................88

CHAPTER XVIII. Spanish Iris .............................................................................................................96

CHAPTER XIX. The Official BugCatcher......................................................................................101

CHAPTER XX. The Cap Sheaf ..........................................................................................................106

CHAPTER XXI. Shifting the Responsibility.....................................................................................110

CHAPTER XXII. The End of Marian's Contest .................................................................................115

CHAPTER XXIII. The Day of Jubilee ...............................................................................................119

CHAPTER XXIV. Linda's First Party ................................................................................................126

CHAPTER XXV. Buena Moza..........................................................................................................135

CHAPTER XXVI. A Mouse Nest......................................................................................................143

CHAPTER XXVII. The Straight and Narrow....................................................................................148

CHAPTER XXVIII. Putting It Up to Peter........................................................................................154

CHAPTER XXIX. Katy Unburdens Her Mind..................................................................................158

CHAPTER XXX. Peter's Release .......................................................................................................167

CHAPTER XXXI. The End of Donald's Contest...............................................................................174

CHAPTER XXXII. How the Wasp Built Her Nest ............................................................................186

CHAPTER XXXIII. The Lady of the Iris ...........................................................................................194

Linda Strong thrust forward a foot and critically examined the narrow vamp, the projecting sole, the broad,

low heel of her wellworn brown calfskin shoe. Then her glance lifted to the face of Donald Whiting, one of

the most brilliant and popular seniors of the high school. Her eyes narrowed in a manner habitual to her when

"Never you mind my shoes," she said deliberately. "Kindly fix your attention on my head piece. When you

see me allowing any Jap in my class to make higher grades than I do, then I give you leave to say anything

An angry red rushed to the boy's face. It was an irritating fact that in the senior class of that particular Los

Angeles high school a Japanese boy stood at the head. This was embarrassing to every senior.

"And I have 'a particular reason'," said Donald, "for being interested in your shoes."

Linda laughed suddenly. When Linda laughed, which was very seldom, those within hearing turned to look at

her. Hers was not a laugh that can be achieved. There were a few high places on the peak of Linda's soul, and

on one of them homed a small flock of notes of rapture; notes as sweet as the voice of the whitebanded

"How surprising!" exclaimed Linda. "We have been attending the same school for three years; now, you stop

"I have been watching them all the time," said Donald. 'Can't understand why any girl wants to be so

different. Why don't you dress your hair the same as the other girls and wear the same kind of clothes and

"Now look here," interposed Linda "You are flying the track.I am willing to justify my shoes, if I can, but

here you go including my dress and a big psychological problem, as well; but I think perhaps the why of the

shoes will explain the remainder. Does the name 'Alexander Strong' mean anything to you?"

"Yes," said Linda. "The man who was the author of halfdozen books that have been translated into many

foreign tongue' and are used as authorities all over the world. He happened to be my father There are two

children in our family. I have a sister four years older than I am who is exactly like Mother, and she and

Mother were inseparable. I am exactly like Father; because we understood each other, and because both of us

always new, although we never mentioned it; that Mother preferred my sister Eileen to me, Father tried to

make it up to me, so from the time I can remember I was at his heels. It never bothered him to have me

playing around in the library while he was writing his most complicated treatise. I have waited in his car half

a day at a time, playing or reading, while he watched a patient or delivered a lecture at some medical college.

His mental relaxation was to hike or to motor to the sea, to the mountains, to the canyons or the desert, and he

very seldom went without me even on long trips when he was fishing or hunting with other men. There was

not much to know concerning a woman's frame or he psychology that Father did not know, so there were two

reason why he selected my footwear as he did. One was because he be believed high heels and pointed toes

an outrage against the nervous province, and the other was that I could not possibly have kept pace with him

except in shoes like these. No doubt, they are the same kind I shall wear all my life, for walking. You

probably don't know it, but my home lies near the middle of Lilac Valley and I walk over a mile each

morning and evening to and from the cars. Does this sufficiently explain my shoes?"

"I suspect I would if I had time to brood over it," Linda replied, "but I haven't. I must hustle to get to school

on time in the morning. It's nearly or quite dark before I reach home in the evening. My father believed in

having a good time. He had superb health, so he spent most of what he made as it came to him. He counted

on a long life. It never occurred to him that a little piece of machinery going wrong would plunge him into

"Yes," she said, "it happened four years ago and I haven't gotten away from the horror of it yet, enough ever

to step inside of a motor car; but I am going to get over that one of these days. Brakes are not all defective,

"You just bet I would," said Donald. "Motoring is one of the greatest pleasures of modern life. I'll wager it

makes some of the gay old boys, like Marcus Aurelius for example, want to turn over in their graves when

"What I was getting at," said Linda, "was a word of reply to the remainder of your indictment against me.

Dad's income stopped with him, and household expenses went on, and war came, so there isn't enough money

to dress two of us as most of the high school girls are dressed. Eileen is so much older that it's her turn first,

and I must say she is not at all backward about exercising her rights. I think that will have to suffice for the

question of dress but you may be sure that I am capable of wearing the loveliest dress imaginable, that would

"Ah, there's the little 'fly in your ointment''dress that would be suitable.' I bet in your heart you think the

"Commendable perspicacity, O learned senior," said Linda, "and amazingly true. In the few short years I had

with Daddy I acquired a fixed idea as to what kind of dress is suitable and sufficiently durable to wear while

walking my daily two miles. I can't seem to become reconciled to the custom of dressing the same for school

"I get it all right enough," said Donald, "but I must think awhile before I decide whether I agree with you.

"And not for my sister," said Donald. "She wears the very foxiest clothes that Father can afford to pay for,

and when she was going to school she wore them without the least regard as to whether she was going to

school or to a tea party or a matinee. For that matter she frequently went to all three the same day.

"Sure enough!" said Donald. "There is me to be considered! What is it you have against me?"

"You SEEM exceptionally strong," she said. "No doubt are good in athletics. Your head looks all right; it

"What are you getting at, anyway?" asked Donald, with more than a hint of asperity m his voice.

"I am getting at the fact," said Linda, "that a boy as big as you and as strong as you and with as good brain

and your opportunity has allowed a little brown Jap to cross the Pacific Ocean and a totally strange country to

learn a language foreign to him, and, and, with the same books and the same chances, to beat you at your own

game. You and every other boy in your classes ought to thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Before I would

let a Jap, either boy or girl, lead in my class, I would give up going to school and go out and see if I could

"And it's better to make good what you say," broke in Linda, with equal heat. "There are half a dozen Japs in

my classes but no one of them is leading, you will notice, if I do wear peculiar shoes."

"Well, you would be going some if you beat the leading Jap in the senior class," said Donald.

"Then I would go some," said Linda. "I'd beat him, or I'd go straight up trying. You could do it if you'd make

up your mind to. The trouble with you is that you're wasting your brain on speeding an automobile, on

dances, and all sorts of foolishness that is not doing you any good in any particular way. Bet you are

developing nerves smoking cigarettes. You are not concentrating. Oka Sayye is not thinking of a thing except

the triumph of proving to California that he is head man in one of the Los Angeles high schools. That's what I

have got against you, and every other white boy in your class, and in the long run it stacks up bigger than

"Oh, darn your shoes!" cried Donald hotly. "Forget 'em! I've got to move on or I'll be late for trigonometry,

but I don't know when I've had such a tidy little fight with a girl, and I don't enjoy feeling that I have been

worsted. I propose another session. May I come out to Lilac Valley Saturday afternoon and flay you alive to

"Why, if your mother happened to be motoring that way and would care to call, I think that would be fine,"

"Well, for the Lord's sake!" exclaimed the irate senior. "Can't a fellow come and fight with you without being

"I only thought," said Linda quietly, "that you would like your mother to see the home and environment of

any girl whose acquaintance you made, but the fight we have coming will in all probability be such a pitched

battle that when I go over the top, you won't ever care to follow me and start another issue on the other side.

You're dying right now to ask why I wear my hair in braids down my back instead of in cootie coops over my

"I don't give a hang," said Donald ungallantly, "as to how you ; wear your hair, but I am coming Saturday to

fight, and I don't think Mother will take any greater interest in the matter than to know that I am going to do

"That is a very nice compliment to my daddy, thank you, said Linda, turning away and proceeding in the

direction of her own classrooms. There was a brilliant sparkle in her eyes and she sang in a muffled voice, yet

"By gracious! She's no fool," he said to himself. In three minutes' unpremeditated talk the "Junior Freak," as

he mentally denominated her, had managed to irritate him, to puncture his pride, to entertain and amuse him.

"I wonder" he said as he went his way; and all day he kept on wondering, when he was not studying harder

That night Linda walked slowly along the road toward home. She was not seeing the broad stretch of Lilac

Valley, on every hand green with spring, odorous with citrus and wild bloom, blue walled with lacy lilacs

veiling the mountain face on either side; and she was not thinking of her plain, wellworn dress or her

commonsense shoes. What she was thinking was of every flaying, scathing, solidly based argument she

could produce the following Saturday to spur Donald Whiting in some way to surpass Oka Sayye. His chance

remark that morning, as they stood near each other waiting a few minutes in the hall, had ended in his asking

to come to see her, and she decided as she walked homeward that his first visit in all probability would be his

last, since she had not time to spare for boys, when she had so many different interests involved; but she did

decide very finely in her own mind that the would make that visit a memorable one for him.

In arriving at this decision her mind traveled a number of devious roads. The thought that she had been

criticized did not annoy her as to the kind of criticism, but she did resent the quality of truth about it. She was

right in following the rules her father had laid down for her health and physical wellbeing, but was it right

that she should wear shoes scuffed, resoled, and even patched, when there was money enough for Eileen to

have many pairs of expensive laced boots, walking shoes, and fancy slippers? She was sure she was right in

wearing dresses suitable for school, but was it right that she must wear them until they were sunfaded,

stained, and disreputable? Was it right that Eileen should occupy their father and mother's suite, redecorated

and daintily furnished according to her own taste, to keep the parts of the house that she cared to use

decorated with flowers and beautifully appointed, while Linda must lock herself in a small stuffy bedroom

room, dingy and none too comfortable, when in deference to her pride she wished to work in secret until she

Then she began thinking, and decided that the only available place in the house for her use was the billiard

room. She made up her mind that she would demand the sole right to this big attic room. She would sell the

table and use the money to buy herself a suitable worktable and a rug. She would demand that Eileen produce

enough money for better clothing for her, and then she remembered what she had said to Donald Whiting

about conquering her horror for a motor car. Linda turned in at the walk leading to her home, but she passed

the front entrance and followed around to the side. As she went she could hear voices in the living room and

she knew that Eileen was entertaining some of her many friends; for Eileen was that peculiar creature known

as a social butterfly. Each day of her life friends came; or Eileen wentmostly the latter, for Eileen had a

knack of management and she so managed her friends that, without their realizing it, they entertained her

many times while she entertained them once. Linda went to the kitchen, Laid her books and package of mail

on the table, and, walking over to the stove, she proceeded deliberately and heartily to kiss the cook.

"Katy, me darlin'," she said, "look upon your only child. Do you notice a 'lean and hungry look' on her classic

"It's growing so fast ye are, childie," she said. "It's only a little while to dinner, and there's company tonight,

'"I'd say there is," said Katy. "John Gilman is here and two friends of Eileen's. It's a near banquet, lassie."

Katy handed them to her and Linda went down the back walk beneath an arch of tropical foliage, between

blazing walls of brilliant flower faces, unlocked the garage, and stood looking at her father's runabout.

In the revolution that had taken place in their home after the passing of their father and mother, Eileen had

dominated the situation and done as she pleased, with the exception of two instances. Linda had shown both

temper and determination at the proposal to dismantle the library and dispose of the cars. She had told Eileen

that she might take the touring car and do as she pleased with it. For her share she wanted her father's

roadster, and she meant to have it. She took the same firm stand concerning the Library. With the rest of the

house Eileen might do as she would. The library was to remain absolutely untouched and what it contained

was Linda's. To this Eileen had agreed, but so far Linda had been content merely to possess her property.

Lately, driven by the feeling that she must find a way in which she could earn money, she had been secretly

working on some plans that she hoped might soon yield her small returns. As for the roadster, she as well as

Eileen had been horrorstricken when the car containing their father and mother and their adjoining

neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, driven by Marian Thorne, the playmate and companion from childhood of

the Strong girls, had become uncontrollable and plunged down the mountain in a disaster that had left only

Marian, protected by the steering gear, alive. They had simply by mutual agreement begun using the street

Linda stood looking at the roadster, jacked up and tucked under a heavy canvas tent that she and her father

had used on their hunting and fishing trips. After a long time she laid strong hands on the canvas and dragged

it to one side. She looked the car over carefully and then, her face very white and her hands trembling, she

climbed into it and slowly and mechanically went through the motions of starting it. For another intent period

she sat with her hands on the steering gear, staring straight ahead, and then she said slowly: "Something has

got to be done. It's not going to be very agreeable, but I am going to do it. Eileen: has had things all her own

way long enough. I am getting such a big girl I ought to have a few things in my life as I want them.

Then Linda proceeded to do something. What she did was to lean forward, rest her head upon the steering

wheel and fight to keep down deep, pitiful sobbing until her whole slender body twisted in the effort.

She was yielding to a breaking up after four years of endurance, for the greater part in silence. As the months

of the past year had rolled their deliberate way, Linda had begun to realize that the course her elder sister had

taken was wholly unfair to her, and slowly a tumult of revolt was growing in her soul. Without a doubt the

culmination had resulted from her few minutes' talk with Donald Whiting in the hall that morning. It had

started Linda to thinking deeply, and the more deeply she thought the clearly she saw the situation. Linda was

a loyal soul and her heart was honest. She was quite willing that Eileen should : exercise her rights as head of

the family, that she should take the precedence to which she was entitled by her four years' seniority, that she

should spend the money which accrued monthly from their father's estate as she saw fit, up to a certain point.

That point was where things ceased to be fair or to be just. If there had been money to do no more for Eileen

than had been done for Linda, it would not have been in Linda's heart to utter a complaint. She could have

worn scuffed shoes and old dresses, and gone her way with her proud young head held very high and a jest on

her lips; but when her mind really fastened on the problem and she began to reason, she could not feel that

Eileen was just to her or that she was fair in her administration of the money which should have been divided

more nearly equally between them, after the household expenses had been paid. Once rebellion burned in her

heart the flames leaped rapidly, and Linda began to remember a thousand small things that she had scarcely

She was leaning on the steering wheel, tired with nerve strain, when she heard Katy calling her, and realized

that she was needed in the kitchen. As a matter of economy Eileen, after her parents' passing, had dismissed

the housemaid, and when there were guests before whom she wished to make a nice appearance Linda had

been impressed either to wait on the table or to help in the kitchen in order that Katy might attend the dining

room, so Linda understood what was wanted when Katy called her. She ran her fingers over the steering

wheel, worn bright by the touch of her father's and her own hands, and with the buoyancy of youth, found

comfort. Once more she mechanically went through the motions of starting the car, then she stepped down,

"You're four years behind the times," she said slowly. "No doubt there's a newer and a better model; I suspect

the tires are rotten, but the last day I drove you for Daddy you purred like a kitten, and ran like a clock, and if

you were cleaned and oiled and put in proper shape, there's no reason in the world why I should not drive you

again, as I have driven you hundreds of miles when Daddy was tired or when he wanted to teach me the rules

of good motoring, and the laws of the road. I can do it all right. I have got to do it, but it will be some time

Leaving the cover on the floor, she locked the door and returned to the kitchen.

Katy had been cook in the Strong family ever since they had moved to Lilac Valley. She had obeyed Mrs.

Strong and Eileen. She had worshiped the Doctor and Linda It always had been patent to her eyes that Mrs.

Strong was extremely partial to Eileen, so Katy had joined forces with the Doctor in surreptitiously doing

everything her warm Irish heart prompted to prevent Linda from feeling neglected. Her quick eyes saw the

traces of tears on Linda's face, and she instantly knew that the trip the girl had made to the garage was in

some way connected with some belongings of her father's, so she said: "I am serving tonight but I want you

to keep things smoking hot and to have them dished up ready for me so that everything will go smoothly."

"What would happen," inquired Linda, "if everything did NOT go smoothly? Katy, do you think the roof

"No, I think the roof would stay right where it belongs," said Katy with a chuckle, "but I do think its staying

"Well," said Linda deliberately, "we won't waste any time on thinking We are going to have some positive

knowledge on the subject pretty immediately. I don't feel equal to starting any domestic santana today, but

the forces are gathering and the blow is coming soon. To that I have firmly made up my mind."

"Ye've got to be such a big girl that it's only fair things in this house should go a good deal different."

"Is Marian to be here?" asked Linda as she stood beside the stove peering into pans and kettles.

"That is another deal Eileen's engineered," she said, "that is just about as wrong as anything possibly can be.

What makes me the maddest about it is that John Gilman will let Eileen take him by the nose and lead him

around like a ringed calf. Where is his common sense? Where is his perception? Where is his honor?"

"Now wait, dearie," said Katy soothingly, "wait. John Gilman is a mighty fine man. Ye know how your father

loved him and trusted him and gave him charge of all his business affairs. Ye mustn't go so far as to be

"No," said Linda, "that was not fair. I don't in the least know that he ever ASKED Marian to marry him; but I

do know that as long as he was a struggling, threadbare young lawyer Marian was welcome to him, and they

had grand times together. The minute he won the big Bailey suit and came into public notice and his practice

increased until he was independent, that minute Eileen began to take notice, and it looks to me now as if she

"And so far as I can see," said Katy, "Miss Marian is taking it without a struggle. She is not lifting a finger or

"Of course she isn't!" said Linda indignantly. "If she thought he preferred some other girl to her, she would

merely say: 'If John has discovered that he likes Eileen the better, why, that is all right; but there wouldn't be

anything to prevent seeing Eileen take John from hurting like the deuce. Did you ever lose a man you loved,

"That I did not!" said Katy emphatically. "We didn't do any four or five years' philanderin' to see if a man

'could make good' when I was a youngster. When a girl and her laddie stood up to each other and looked each

other straight in the eye and had the great understanding, there weren't no question of whether he could do for

her what her father and mither had been doing, nor of how much he had to earn before they would be able to

begin life together. They just caught hands and hotfooted it to the praste and told him to read the banns the

next Sunday, and when the law allowed they was man and wife and taking what life had for them the way it

came, and together. All this philanderin' that young folks do nowadays is just pure nonsense, and waste of

"Sure!" laughed Linda. "When my brave comes along with his blanket I'll just step under, and then if

anybody tries to take my man I'll have the right to go on the warpath and have a scalping party that would be

Then they served the dinner, and when the guests had left the dining room, Katy closed the doors, and

brought on the delicacies she had hidden for Linda and patted and cajoled her while she ate like any healthy,

Linda slid down the side of the canyon with the deftness of the expert. At the first available crevice she thrust

in her Alpine stick, and bracing herself, gained a footing. Then she turned and by use of her fingers and toes

worked her way back to the plan, she had passed. She was familiar with many members of she family, but

such a fine specimen she seldom had found and she could not recall having seen it in all of her botanies.

Opposite the plant she worked out a footing, drove her stick deep at the base of a rock to brace herself, and

from the knapsack on her back took a sketchbook and pencil and began rapidly copying the thick fleshy

leaves of the flattened rosette, sitting securely at the edge of a rock. She worked swiftly and with breathless

interest. When she had finished the flower she began sketching in the mosscovered face of the boulder

"I think, Coty," she said, "it is very probable that I can come a few simoleons with you. You are becoming

For a touch of color she margined one side of her drawing with a little spray of Pentstemon whose bright

tubular flower the canyon knew as "hummingbird's dinner horn." That gave, her the idea of introducing a

touch of living interest, so bearing down upon the flowers from the upper righthand corner of her drawing

she deftly sketched in a rubythroated hummingbird, and across the bottom of the sheet the lace of a few

leaves of fern. Then she returned the drawing and pencil to her knapsack, and making sure of her footing,

worked her way forward. With her long slender fingers she began teasing the plant loose from the rock and

the surrounding soil. The roots penetrated deeper than she had supposed and in her interest she forgot her

precarious footing and pulled hard. The plant gave way unexpectedly, and losing her balance, Linda plunged

down the side of the canyon catching wildly at shrubs and bushes and bruising herself severely on stones,

She was not seriously hurt, but she did not present a picturesque figure as she sprawled in the road, her

booted feet thrust straight before her, one of her long black braids caught on a bush at her back, her blouse

pulled above her breeches, the contents of her knapsack decorating the canyon side and the road around her;

but high in one hand, without break or blemish, she triumphantly held aloft the rare Cotyledon. She shrugged

her shoulders, wiggled her toes, and moved her arms to assure herself that no bones were broken; then she

glanced at her drawings and the fruits of her day's collecting scattered on the roadside around her. She was in

the act of rising when a motor car containing two young men shot around a curve of the canyon, swerved to

"It's a girl!" cried the driver, and both men sprang to the road and hurried to Linda's assistance. Her dark

cheeks were red with mortification, but she managed to recover her feet and tuck in her blouse before they

"We heard you coming down," said the elder of the young men, "and we thought you might be a bear. Are

"I am able to stand," she said, "so of course I haven't broken any bones. I think I am fairly well battered, but

you will please to observe that there isn't a scratch on Cotyledon, and I brought her downat least I think it's

shefrom the edge of that boulder away up there. Isn't she a beauty? Only notice the delicate frosty 'bloom'

"I should prefer," said the younger of the men, to know whether you have any broken bones."

"I'm sure I am all right," answered Linda. "I have falling down mountains reduced to an exact science. I'll bet

you couldn't slide that far and bring down Coty without a scratch.' "Well, which is the more precious," said

"Why, the specimen!" answered Linda in impatience. "California is full of girls; but this is the finest

Cotyledon of this family I have ever seen. Don't mistake this for any common stonecrop. It looks to me like

an Echeveria. I know what I mean to do with the picture I have made of her, and I know exactly where she is

For the first time Linda glanced at him, and her impression was that he was decidedly attractive.

"No, thank you!" she answered briskly. "I am going to climb back up to the boulder and collect the

belongings I spilled on the way down. Then I am going to carry Coty to the car line in a kind of triumphal

march, because she is the rarest find that I have ever made. I hope you have no dark designs on Coty, because

Linda indicated her trail down the canyon side, brushed soil and twigs from her trousers, turned her straight

young back, carefully set down her specimen, and by the aid of her recovered stick began expertly making

her way up the canyon side. "Here, let me do that," offered the younger man. "You rest until I collect your

belongings." Linda glanced back over her shoulder. "Thanks," she said. "I have a mental inventory of all the

pencils and knives and trowels I must find. You might overlook the most important part of my paraphernalia;

Linda started back up the side of the canyon, leaving the young men to enter their car and drive away. For a

"What will girls be wearing and doing next?" asked the elder of the two as he started his car.

"What would you have a girl wear when she is occupied with coasting down canyons?" said his friend. "And

as for what she is doing, it's probable that every highschool girl in Los Angeles has a botanical collection to

"I see!" said the man driving. "She is only a highschool kid, , but did you notice that she is going to make an

"Yes, I noticed just that; I noticed it very particularly," answered the younger man. "And I noticed also that

Linda collected her belongings, straightened her hair and clothing, and, with her knapsack in place, and

leaning rather on heavily on her walking stick, made her way down the road to the abutment of a small rustic

bridge where she stopped to rest. The stream at her feet was noisy and icy cold. It rushed through narrow

defiles in the rock, beat itself to foam against the faces a of the big stones, fell over jutting cliffs, spread in

whispering pools, wound back and forth across the road at its will, singing every foot of its downward way

and watering beds of crisp, cool miners' lettuce, great ferns, and heliotrope, climbing clematis, soil and

blueeyed grass. All along its length grew willows, and in a few places whitebodied sycamores.

Everywhere over the walls red above it that vegetation could find a footing grew mosses, vines, flowers, and

shrubs. On the shadiest side homed most of the ferns and the Cotyledon. In the sun, larkspur, lupin, and

monkey flower; everywhere wild rose, holly, mahogany, gooseberry, and bayoneted yucca all intermingling

in a curtain of variegated greens, brocaded with flower arabesques of vivid red, white, yellow, and blue.

Canyon wrens and vireos sang as they nested. The air was clear, cool, and salty from the nearby sea. Myriad

leaf shadows danced on the black roadbed, level as a barn floor, and across it trailed the wavering image of

hawk and vulture, gull and white sea swallow. Linda studied the canyon with intent eyes, but bruised flesh

pleaded, so reluctantly she arose, shouldered her belongings, and slowly followed the road out to the car line

that passed through Lilac Valley, still carefully bearing in triumph the precious Cotyledon. An hour later she

entered the driveway of her home. She stopped to set her plant carefully in the wild garden she and her father

had worked all her life at collecting, then followed the back porch and kitchen route.

"I came a cropper down Multiflores Canyon where it is so steep that it leans the other way. I pretty well

"Now ain't that just my luck!" wailed Katy, snatching a cake cutter and beginning hurriedly to stamp out little

"Well, I don't understand in exactly what way," said Linda, absently rubbing her elbows and her knees.

"Yes, and ain't it just like ye," said Katy, "to be coming in late, and all banged up when Miss Eileen has got

sudden notice that there is going to be company again and I have an especial dinner to serve, and never in the

"Why, who is coming now?" asked Linda, seating herself on the nearest chair and beginning to unfasten her

"'Of course,'" conceded Linda. "If he tried to get past our house, Eileen is perfectly capable of setting it on

"Oh I don't know that ye should say just that," said Katy "Eileen is a mighty pretty girl, and she is SOME

"You can stake your hilarious life she is," said Linda, viciously kicking a boot to the center of the kitchen.

"She can manage to go downtown for lunch and be invited out to dinner thirteen times a week, and leave us at

home to eat bread and milk, bread heavily stressed. She can manage to get every cent of the income from the

property in her fingers, and a great big girl like me has to go to high school looking so tacky that even the

boys are beginning to comment on it. Manage, I'll say she can manage, not to mention managing to snake

John Gilman right out of Marian's fingers. I doubt if Marian fully realizes yet that she's lost her man; and I

The second boot landed beside the first, then Linda picked them both up and started toward the back hall.

"Of course not," said Linda. "Give me a few minutes to take a bath and step into my clothes and then I'll be

With a black scowl on her face, Linda climbed the dingy back stairway in her stockingfeet. At the head of

the stairs she paused one minute, glanced at the gloom of her end of the house, then she turned and walked to

the front of the hall where there were potted ferns, dainty white curtains, and bright rugs. The door of the

guest room stood open and she could see that it was filled with fresh flowers and ready for occupancy. The

door of her sister's room was slightly ajar and she pushed it open and stood looking inside. In her state of

disarray she made a shocking contrast to the flowerlike figure busy before a dressing table. Linda was dark,

narrow, rawboned, overgrown in height, and forthright of disposition. Eileen was a tiny woman, delicately

moulded, exquisitely colored, and one of the most perfectly successful tendrils from the original clinging vine

in her intercourse with men, and with such women as would tolerate the clingingvine idea in the present

forthright days. With a strand of softly curled hair in one hand and a fancy pin in the other, Eileen turned a

"Oh, it's perfectly splendid," answered Eileen. "John Gilman's best friend is motoring around here looking for

a location to build a home. He is an author and young and good looking and not married, and he thinks he

would like to settle somewhere near Los Angeles. Of course John would love to have him in Lilac Valley

because he hopes to build a home here some day for himself. His name is Peter Morrison and John says that

his articles and stories have horse sense, logic, and humor, and he is making a lot of money."

"Then God help John Gilman, if he thinks now that he is in love with you," said Linda dryly.

Eileen arched her eyebrows, thinned to a hair line, and her lips drew together in disapproval.

"What I can't understand," she said, "is how you can be so unspeakably vulgar, Linda."

"Yes," said Eileen. "I am going to show them this valley inside and out. I'm so glad it's spring. We're at our

very best. It would be perfectly wonderful to have an author for a neighbor, and he must be going to build a

real house, because he has his architect with him; and John says that while he is young, he has done several

"Up the flue goes Marian's chance of drawing the plans for John Gilman's house," she said. "I have heard him

Eileen deftly placed the strand of hair and set the jewelled pin with precision.

"Yes," said Linda, "I observe that they have. Marian has sold the home she adored. She is leaving friends she

loved and trusted, and who were particularly bound to her by a common grief without realizing exactly how it

is happening. She certainly must know that you have taken her lover, and I have not a doubt but that is the

reason she has discovered she can no longer work at home, that she must sell her property and spend the

"Linda," said Eileen, her face pale with anger, "you are positively insufferable. Will you leave my room and

"Well, Katy has just informed me," said Linda, "that this dinner party doesn't come off without my valued

assistance, and before I agree to assist, I'll know ONE thing. Are you proposing to entertain these three men

"I did not know they were coming until an hour ago," she said. "_I_ barely had time to fill the vases and dust,

and then I ran up to dress so that there would be someone presentable when they arrive."

"All right then, we'll agree that this is a surprise party, but if John Gilman has told you so much about them,

you must have been expecting them, and in a measure prepared for them at any time. Haven't you talked it

Eileen was extremely busy with another wave of hair. She turned her back and her voice was not quite steady

as she answered. "Ever since Marian got this 'going to the city to study' idea in her head I have scarcely seen

her. She had an awful job to empty the house, and pack such things as she wants to keep, and she is working

overtime on a very special plan that she thinks maybe she'll submit in a prize competition offered by a big

"And you never once went over to help her with her work, or to encourage her or to comfort her? You can't

think Marian can leave this valley and not be almost heartbroken," said Linda. "You just make me almost

wonder at you. When you think of the kind of friends that Marian Thorne's father and mother, and our father

and mother were, and how we children were reared together, and the good times we have had in these two

housesand then the awful day when the car went over the cliff, and how Marian clung to us and tried to

comfort us, when her own health was broken and Marian's the same Marian she has always been, only

nicer every dayhow you can sit there and say you have scarcely seen her in six of the hardest weeks of her

life, certainly surprises me. I'll tell you this: I told Katy I would help her, but I won't do it if you don't go over

Eileen turned to her sister and looked at her keenly. Linda's brow was sullen, and her jaw set.

"A bed would look mighty good to me and I will go and get into mine this minute if you don't say you will go

Eileen hesitated a second and then said: "All right, since you make such a point of it I will ask her."

In less than an hour, Linda was in the kitchen, dressed in an old green skirt and an orange blouse. Katy

pinned one of her aprons on the girl and told her that her first job was to set the table.

"And Miss Eileen has given most particular orders that I use the very best of everything. Lay the table for

Linda stood very quietly for a second, her heavy black brows drawn together in deep thought.

"Not five minutes ago," said Katy. "She just left me kitchen and I'll say I never saw her lookin' such a perfect

Almost unconsciously, Linda's hand reached to the front of her wellworn blouse, and she glanced downward

"Umhm," she said meditatively, "another new dress for Eileen, which means that I will get nothing until

next month's allowance comes in, if I do then. The table set for four, which, interpreted, signifies that she has

asked Marian in such a way that Marian won't come. And the caution as to care with the soup means that I

am to serve my father's table like a paid waitress. Katy, I have run for over three years on Eileen's schedule,

but this past year I am beginning to use my brains and I am reaching the place of selfassertion. That

programme won't do, Katy. It's got to be completely revised. You just watch me and see how I follow those

Then Linda marched out of the kitchen door and started across the lawn in the direction of a big brown house

dimly outlined through widely spreading branches of ancient live oaks, palm, and bamboo thickets. She

entered the house without knocking and in the hall uttered a low penetrating whistle. It was instantly

"Why, Marian," she cried, "I had no idea you were so far along. The house is actually empty."

"Practically everything went yesterday," answered Marian. "Those things of Father's and Mother's and my

own that I wish to keep I have put in storage, and the remainder went to James's Auction Rooms. The house

"Then that explains," questioned Linda, "why you refused Eileen's invitation to dinner tonight?"

"On the contrary," answered Marian, "an invitation to dinner tonight would be particularly and peculiarly

acceptable to me, since the kitchen is barren as the remainder of the house, and I was intending to slip over

"Well, thank heaven that you felt sufficiently sure of me to come to me when you needed me. Of course you

shall spend the night with me; and I must have been mistaken in thinking Eileen had been here. She probably

will come any minute. There are guests for the night. John is bringing that writer friend of his. Of course you

Marian nodded her head. "Of course! John has always talked of him. He had some extremely clever articles

"Well, he is one," said Linda, "and an architect who is touring with him is two; they are looking for a location

to build a house for the writer. You can see that it would be a particularly attractive feather in our cap if he

would endorse our valley sufficiently to home in it. So Eileen has invited them to sample our brand of

entertainment, and in the morning no doubt she will be delighted to accompany them and show them all the

"Well, if you are particular about wanting a certain place I sincerely hope you did not," said Linda.

"I am sure I never did," answered Marian. "I so love one spot that I have been most secretive about it. I am

certain I never went further than to say there was a place on which I would love to build for myself the house

of my dreams. I have just about finished getting that home on paper, and I truly have high hopes that I may

stand at least a fair chance of winning with it the prize Nicholson and Snow are offering. That is one of the

reasons why I am hurrying on my way to San Francisco much sooner than I had expected to go. I haven't a

suitable dinner dress because my trunks have gone, but among such old friends it won't matter. I have one

fussy blouse in my bag, and I'll be over as soon as I can see to closing up the house and dressing."

Linda hurried home, and going to the dining room, she laid the table for six in a deft and artistic manner. She

filled a basket with beautiful flowers of her own growing for a centerpiece, and carefully followed Eileen's

instruction to use the best of everything. When she had finished she went to the kitchen.

"I quite agree with you," answered Linda, "and now in pursuance of a recently arrived at decision, I have

resigned, vamoosed, quit, dead stopped being waitress for Eileen. I was seventeen my last birthday. Hereafter

when there are guests I sit at my father's table, and you will have to do the best you can with serving, Katy."

"And it's just exactly right ye are," said Katy. "I'll do my best, and if that's not good enough, Miss Eileen

"Now listen to you," laughed Linda. "Katy, you couldn't be driven to leave me, by anything on this earth that

Katy chuckled quietly. "Sure, I wouldn't be leaving ye, lambie," she said. "We'll get everything ready, and I

can serve I six as nicely as anyone. But you're not forgetting that Miss Eileen said most explicit to lay the

"I am not forgetting," said Linda. "For Eileen's sake I am I sorry to say that her ship is on the shoals. She is

not going to have clear sailing with little sister Linda any longer. This is the year of woman's rights, you

know, Katy, and I am beginning to realize that my rights have been badly infringed upon for lo these many

years. If Eileen chooses to make a scene before guests, that is strictly up to Eileen. Now what is it you want

Katy directed and Linda worked swiftly. Soon they heard a motor stop, and laughing voices told them that the

"Linda," she said breathlessly, "I am feeling queer about this. Eileen hasn't been over."

"Oh, that's all right," said Linda casually. "The folks have come, and she was only waiting to make them a bit

"That's 'cause she knew you did not need it," retorted Linda. "The more you fuss up, the less handsome you

are, and you never owned anything in your life so becoming as that old red blouse. So farewell, Katy, we're

due to burst into high society tonight. We're going to help Eileen vamp a lawyer, and an author, and an

"I'll take the architect," said Marian. "We should have something in common since I am going to be a great

"Why, that is too bad," said Linda. "I'll have to rearrange the table if you insist, because I took him, and left

you the author, and it was for love of you I did it. I truly wanted him myself, all the time."

They stopped in the dining room and Marian praised Linda's work in laying the table; and then, together they

At the moment of their entrance, Eileen was talking animatedly about the beauties of the valley as a location

for a happy home. When she saw the two girls she paused, the color swiftly faded from her face, and Linda,

who was watching to see what would happen, noticed the effort she made at selfcontrol, but she was very

It never occurred to Linda that anyone would consider good looks in connection with her overgrown,

rawboned frame and lean face, but she was accustomed to seeing people admire Marian, for Marian was a

perfectly modeled woman with peach bloom cheeks, deep, dark eyes, her face framed in a waving mass of

hair whose whiteness dated from the day that the brakes of her car failed and she plunged down the mountain

with her father beside her, and her mother and Doctor and Mrs. Strong in the back seat. Ten days afterward

Marian's head of beautiful dark hair was muslin white. Now it framed a face of youth and beauty with

peculiar pathos. "Striking" was perhaps the one adjective which would best describe her.

John Gilman came hastily to greet them. Linda, after a swift glance at Eileen, turned astonished eyes on their

guests. For one second she looked at the elder of them, then at the younger. There was no recognition in her

eyes, and there was a decided negative in a swift movement of her head. Both men understood that she did

not wish them to mention that they ever had seen her previously. For an instant there was a strained situation.

Eileen was white with anger. John Gilman was looking straight at Marian, and in his soul he must have

wondered if he had been wise in neglecting her for Eileen. Peter Morrison and his architect, Henry Anderson,

had two things to think about. One was the stunning beauty of Marian Thorne as she paused in the doorway,

the light misting her white hair and deepening the tints of her red waist The other was why the young girl

facing them had forbidden them to reveal that two hours before they had seen her in the canyon. Katy, the

efficient lifesaver of the Strong family, announced dinner, and Linda drew back the curtains and led the way

to the dining room, saying when they had arrived: "I didn't have time in my hour's notice to make elaborate

place cards as I should have liked to do, so these little pen sketches will have to serve."

To cover his embarrassment and to satisfy his legal mind, John Gilman turned to Linda, asking: "Why 'an

"But that does not prove that Eileen mentioned it to me," answered Linda quietly; "so you must find your

This same preparation of cards at the round table placed Eileen between the architect and the author, Marian

between the author and John Gilman, and Linda between Gilman and the architect, which added one more

tiny gale to the storm of fury that was raging in the breast of whitefaced Eileen. The situation was so

strained that without fully understanding it, Marian, who was several years older than either of the Strong

sisters, knew that although she was tired to the point of exhaustion she should muster what reserve force she

could to the end of making the dinner party particularly attractive, because she was deeply interested i n

drawing to the valley every suitable home seeker it was possible to locate there. It was the unwritten law of

the valley that whenever a home seeker passed through, every soul who belonged exerted the strongest

influence to prove that the stars hung lower and shone bigger and in bluer heavens than anywhere else on

earth; that nowhere could be found air to equal the energizing salt breezes from the sea, snow chilled,

perfumed with almond and orange; that the sun shone brighter more days in the year, and the soil produced a

greater variety of vegetables and fruits than any other spot of the same size on God's wonderful footstool.

This could be done with unanimity and enthusiasm by every resident of Lilac Valley for the very simple

reason that it was the truth. The valley stood with its steep sides raying blue from myriad wild lilacs; olives

and oranges sloped down to the flat floor, where cultivated ranches and gardens were so screened by

eucalyptus and pepper trees, palm and live oak, myriads of roses of every color and variety, and gaudy plants

gathered there from the entire girth of the tropical world, that to the traveler on the highway trees and flowers

predominated. The greatest treasure of the valley was the enthusiastic stream of icy mountain water that

wandered through the nearby canyon and followed the length of the valley on its singing, chuckling way to

the ocean. All the residents of Lilac Valley had to do to entrance strangers with the location was to show any

one of a dozen vantage points, and let visitors test for themselves the quality of the sunshine and air, and

study the picture made by the broad stretch of intensively cultivated valley, walled on either side by

mountains whose highest peaks were often clouddraped and for ever shifting their delicate pastel shades

from gray to blue, from lavender to purple, from tawny yellow to sepia, under the play of the sun and clouds.

They had not been seated three minutes before Linda realized from her knowledge of Eileen that the shock

had been too great, if such a thing might be said of so resourceful a creature as Eileen. Evidently she was

going to sulk in the hope that this would prove that any party was a failure at which she did not exert herself

to be gracious. It had not been in Linda's heart to do more than sit quietly in the place belonging by right to

her, but when she realized what was going to happen, she sent Marian one swift appealing glance, and then

"I have been told," she said, addressing the author, "that you are looking for a home in California. Is this true,

or is it merely that every good Californian hopes this will happen when any distinguished Easterner comes

"I can scarcely answer you," said Peter Morrison, "because my ideas on the subject are still slightly nebulous,

"You have struck exactly the right place," said Linda. "We have concrete by the wagon load in this valley and

we are perfectly willing to donate the amount required to materialize your ideas. Do you dream of a whole

"Well, the fact is," answered Peter Morrison with a most attractive drawl in his slow speech, "the fact is the

dimensions of my dream must fit my purse. Ever since I finished college I have been in newspaper work and

I have lived in an apartment in New York except while I was abroad. When I came back my paper sent me to

San Francisco and from there I motored down to see for myself if the wonderful things that are written about

"That is not much of a compliment to us," said Linda slowly. "How do you think we would dare write them if

This caused such a laugh that everyone felt much easier. Marian turned her dark eyes toward Peter Morrison.

"Linda and I are busy people," she said. "We waste little time in indirections, so I hope it's not out of the way

for me to ask straightforwardly if you are truly in earnest, about wanting a home in Lilac Valley?"

"Then I'll have to answer you," said Peter, "that I have an attractive part of the 'makin's' and I am in deadly

earnest about wanting a home somewhere. I am sick in my soul of narrow apartments and wheels and the

rush and roar of the city. There was a time when I ate and drank it. It was the very breath of life to me. I

charged on Broadway like a caterpillar tank charging in battle; but it is very remarkable how quickly one

changes in this world. I have had some success in my work, and the higher I go, the better work I feel I can

do in a quiet place and among less enervating surroundings. John and I were in college together, roommates,

and no doubt he has told you that we graduated with the same class. He has found his location here and I

would particularly enjoy having a home near him. They tell me there are welltrained servants to look after a

house and care for a bachelor, so I truly feel that if I can find a location I would like, and if Henry can plan

me a house, and I can stretch my purse to cover the investment, that there is a very large possibility that

"One would almost expect," said Marian, "that a writer would say something more original. This valley is

filled with people who came here saying precisely what you have said; and the lure of the land won them and

"Because California so verifies the wildest statement that can be made concerning her that one may go the

limit of imagination without shame," laughed Marian. "I try in all my dealings to stick to the straight and

"Oh, kid, don't stick to the straight and narrow," broke in Linda, "there's no scenery."

Eileen laid down her fork and stared in whitelipped amazement at the two girls, but she was utterly

incapable of forgetting herself and her neatly arranged plans to have the three cultivated and attractive young

men all to herself for the evening. She realized too, from the satisfaction betrayed in the glances these men

were exchanging among each other, the ease with which they sat, and the gusto with which they ate the food

Katy was deftly serving them, that something was happening which never had happened at the Strong table

since she had presided as its head, her sole endeavor having been to flatter her guests or to extract flattery for

"That is what makes this valley so adorable," said Marian when at last she could make herself heard. "It is

neither straight nor narrow. The wing of a white sea swallow never swept a lovelier curve on the breast of the

ocean than the line of this valley. My mother was the dearest little woman, and she used to say that this valley

was outlined by a gracious gesture from the hand of God in the dawn of Creation."

Peter Morrison deliberately turned in his chair, his eyes intent on Marian's earnest face.

"You almost make me want to say, in the language of an old hymn I used to hear my mother sing, 'Here will I

set up my rest.' With such a name as Lilac Valley and with such a thought in the heart concerning it, I

scarcely feel that there is any use in looking further. How about it, Henry? Doesn't it sound conclusive to

"It certainly does," answered Henry Anderson, "and from what I could see as we drove in, it looks as well as

"Gilman," he said, "you're a lawyer; you should know the things I'd like to. Are there desirable homesites still

to be found in the valley, and does the inflation of land at the present minute put it out of my reach?"

"Well, that is on a par with the average question asked a lawyer," answered Gilman, "but part of it I can

answer definitely and at once. I think every acre of land suitable for garden or field cultivation is taken. I

doubt if there is much of the orchard land higher up remaining and what there is would command a rather

stiff price; but if you would be content with some small plateau at the base of a mountain where you could set

any sort of a house and havesay two or three acres, mostly of sage and boulders and greasewood and yucca

"Why in this world are you talking about stones and sage and greasewood?" cried Linda. "Next thing they'll

"I beg your pardon," said Gilman, "I fear none of us has remembered to present Miss Linda as a coming

naturalist. She got her start from her father, who was one of the greatest nerve specialists the world ever has

known. She knows every inch of the mountains, the canyons and the desert. She always says that she cut her

teeth on a chunk of adobe, while her father hunted the nests of trapdoor spiders out in Sunland. What should

"You should have assumed that immediately, Peter,"Linda lifted her eyes to Morrison's face with a sparkle

of gay challenge, and by way of apology interjected"I am only a kid, you know, so I may call John's friend

Peteryou should have assumed that sage and greasewood would simply have vanished from any home

location chosen by Peter, leaving it all lacy blue with lilac, and misty white with lemonade bush, and lovely

gold with monkey flower, and purple with lupin, and painted blood red with broad strokes of Indian paint

brush, and beautifully lighted with feathery flames from Our Lord's Candles, and perfumy as altar incense

"Oh, my soul," said Peter Morrison. "Good people, I have located. I have come to stay. I would like three

acres but I could exist with two; an acre would seem an estate to me, and my ideas of a house, Henry, are

shriveling. I did have a dream of something that must have been precious near a home. There might have

been an evanescent hint of flitting draperies and inexperienced feet in it, but for the sake of living and

working in such a location as Miss Linda describes, I would gladly cut my residence to a workroom and a

"Won't do," said Linda. "A house is not a house in California without a furnace and a bathroom. We are cold

as blue blazes here when the sun goes down and the salty fog creeps up from the sea, and the icy mist rolls

down from the mountains to chill our bones; and when it has not rained for six months at a stretch, your own

private swimming pool is a comfort. This to add verisimilitude to what everyone else in Lilac Valley is going

"I hadn't thought I would need a fire," said Peter, "and I was depending on the ocean for my bathtub. I am

So far, Eileen had not deigned to enter the conversation. It was all so human, so far from her ideas of

entertaining that the disapproval on her lips was not sufficiently veiled to be invisible, and

John Gilman, glancing in her direction, realized that he was having the best time he had ever had in the

Strong household since the passing of his friends, Doctor and Mrs. Strong, vaguely wondered why. And it

occurred to him that Linda and Marian were dominating the party. He said the most irritating thing possible

in the circumstances: "I am afraid you are not feeling well this evening, Eileen."

"The one perfect thing about me," she said with closely cut precision, "is my health. I haven't the faintest

notion what it means to be ill. I am merely waiting for the conversation to take a I turn where I can join in it

"Why, bless the child!" exclaimed Linda. "Can't you talk intelligently about a suitable location for a home?

On what subject is a woman supposed to be intelligent if she is not at her best on the theme of home. If you

really are not interested you had better begin to polish up, because it appeals to me that the world goes just so

far in one direction, and then it whirls to the rightabout and goes equally as far in the opposite direction. If

Daddy were living I think he would say we have reached the limit with apartment house homes minus

fireplaces, with restaurant dining minus a blessing, with jazz music minus melody, with jazz dancing minus

"Good gracious!" cried Linda. "Do I get the shillalah for that? Weren't all of us rocked in cradles? I think that

the pendulum has swung far and it is time to swing back to where one man and one woman choose any little

spot on God's footstool, build a nest and plan their lives in accord with personal desire and inclination instead

"Bravo!" cried Henry Anderson. "Miss Linda, if you see any suitable spot, and you think I would serve for a

"Well, I don't know about that," said Linda. "Would it be the old case of 'I furnish the bread and you furnish

"No," said Peter Morrison, "it would not. Henry is doing mighty well. I guarantee that he would furnish a

"How joyous!" said Linda. "I feel quite competent to manage the bread question. We'll call that settled then.

When I next cast an appraising eye over my beloved valley, I shan't select the choicest spot in it for Peter

Morrison to write a book in; and I want to warn you people when you go hunting to keep a mile away from

Marian's plot. She has had her location staked from childhood and has worked on her dream house until she

has it all ready to put the ice in the chest and scratch the match for the living room firelogs. The one thing

she won't ever tell is where her location is, but wherever it is, Peter Morrison, don't you dare take it."

"I wouldn't for the world," said Peter Morrison gravely. "If Miss Thorne will tell me even on which side of

"Well there is one thing you can depend upon," said the irrepressible Linda before Marian had time to speak.

"It is sure to be on the sunny side. Every living soul in California is looking for a place in the sun."

"Then I will make a note of it," said Peter Morrison. "But isn't there enough sun in all this lovely valley that I

"You go straight ahead and select any location you like," said Marian. "I give you the freedom of the valley.

There's not one chance in ten thousand that you would find or see anything attractive about the one secluded

"This is not fooling, then?" asked Peter Morrison. "You truly have a place selected where you would like to

"She truly has the spot selected and she truly has the house on paper and it truly is a house of dreams," said

Linda. "I dream about it myself. When she builds it and lives in it awhile and finds out all the things that are

wrong with it, then I am going to build one like it, only I shall eliminate all the mistakes she has made."

"I have often wondered," said Henry Anderson, "if such a thing ever happened as that people built a house

and lived in it, say ten years, and did not find one single thing about it that they would change if they had it to

"I am sure no one has," said John Gilman meditatively, "and it's a queer thing. I can't see why people don't

Marian turned to himthe same Marian he had fallen in love with when they were children.

"Mightn't it be," she asked, "that it is due to changing conditions caused by the rapid development of science

and invention? If one had built the most perfect house possible five years ago and learned today that infinitely

superior lighting and heating l and living facilities could be installed at much less expense and far greater

convenience, don't you think that one would want to change? Isn't life a series of changes? Mustn't one be

"Why, surely," answered Gilman, "and no doubt therein lies at least part of the answer to Anderson's

"And then," added Marian, "things happen in families. Sometimes more babies than they expect come to

"My goodness, yes!" broke in Linda. "Just look at Sylvia Townsendtwins to begin with."

"And then," continued Marian, "changes come to other people as they have to me. I can't say that I had any

fault to find with either the comforts or the conveniences of Hawthorne House until Daddy and Mother were

swept from it at one cruel sweep; and after that it was nothing to me but a haunted house, and I don't feel that

I can be blamed for wanting to leave it. I will be glad to know that there are people living in it who won't see

a big strong figure meditatively smoking before the fireplace and a gray dove of a woman sitting on the arm

of his chair. I will be glad, if Fate is kind to me and people like my houses, to come back to the valley when I

can afford to and build myself a home that has no pasta place, in fact, where I can furnish my own ghost,

"I don't think there is a soul in the valley who blames you for selling your home and going, Marian," said

The return to the living room brought no change. Eileen pouted while Linda and Marian thoroughly enjoyed

themselves and gave the guests a most entertaining evening. So disgruntled was Eileen, when the young men

had gone, that she immediately went to her room, leaving Linda and Marian to close the house and make their

own arrangements for the night. Whereupon Linda deliberately led Marian to the carefully dusted and

flowergarnished guest room and installed her with every comfort and convenience that the house afforded.

Then bringing her brushes from her own room, she and Marian made themselves comfortable, visiting far

"I wonder," said Linda. "if Peter Morrison will go to a real estate man in the morning and look over the

"It seems to me," said Linda, "that we did a whole lot of talking about homes tonight; which reminds me,

Marian, in packing have you put in your plans? Have you got your last draft with you?"

"No," answered Marian, "it's in one of the cases. I haven't anything but two or three pencil sketches from

which I drew the final plans as I now think I'll submit them for the contest. Wouldn't it be a tall feather in my

"It would be more than a feather," said Linda. "It would be a whole cap, and a coat to wear with it, and a

dress to match the coat, and slippers to match the dress, and so forth just like 'The House That Jack Built.'

Opening her case, Marian slid from underneath the garments folded in it, several sheets on which were

roughly penciled sketches of the exterior of a houseon the reverse, the upstairs and downstairs floor plans;

and sitting down, she explained these to Linda. Then she left them lying on a table, waiting to be returned to

her case before she replaced her clothes in the morning. Both girls were fast asleep when a mischievous wind

slipped down the valley, and lightly lifting the top sheet, carried it through the window, across the garden,

Because they had talked until late in the night of Marian's plans and prospects in the city, of Peter Morrison's

proposed residence in the valley, of how lonely Linda would be without Marian, of everything concerning

their lives except the change in Eileen and John Gilman, the two girls slept until late in the morning, so that

there were but a few minutes remaining in which Marian might dress, have a hasty breakfast and make her

train. In helping her, it fell to Linda to pack Marian's case. She put the drawings she found on the table in the

bottom, the clothing and brushes on top of them, and closing the case, carried it herself until she delivered it

The last glimpse Marian Thorne had of Linda was as she stood alone, waving her hand, her cheeks flushed,

her eyes shining, her final word cheery and encouraging. Marian smiled and waved in return until the train

bore her away. Then she sat down wearily and stared unseeingly from a window. Life did such very dreadful

things to people. Her girlhood had been so happy. Then came the day of the Black Shadow, but in her

blackest hour she had not felt alone. She had supposed she was leaning on John Gilman as securely as she

had leaned on her father. She had learned, with the loss of her father, that one cannot be sure of anything in

this world least of all of human life. Yet in her darkest days she had depended on John Gilman. She had every

reason to believe that it was for her that he struggled daily to gain a footing in his chosen profession. When

success came, when there was no reason that Marian could see why they might not have begun life together,

there had come a subtle change in John, and that change had developed so rapidly that in a few weeks' time,

she was forced to admit that the companionship and loving attentions that once had been all hers were now all

She sat in the train, steadily carrying her mile after mile farther from her home, and tried to think what had

happened and how and why it had happened. She could not feel that she had been wrong in her estimate of

been taught her by her father and mother and by Doctor and Mrs. Strong and by John Gilman himself. Dating

from the time that Doctor Strong had purchased the property and built a home in Lilac Valley beside

Hawthorne House, Marian had admired Eileen and had loved her. She was several years older than the

beautiful girl she had grown up beside. Age had not mattered; Eileen's beauty had not mattered. Marian was

She always had known that Eileen had imposed upon her and was selfish with her, but Eileen's impositions

were so skillfully maneuvered, her selfishness was so adorably taken for granted that Marian in retrospection

felt that perhaps she was responsible for at least a small part of it. She never had been able to see the inner

workings of Eileen's heart. She was not capable of understanding that when John Gilman was poor and

struggling Eileen had ignored him. It had not occurred to Marian that when the success for which he

struggled began to come generously, Eileen would begin to covet the man she had previously disdained. She

had always striven to find friends among people of wealth and distinction. How was Marian to know that

Marian could not know that Eileen had studied her harder than she ever studied any book, that she had

deliberately set herself to make the most of every defect or idiosyncrasy in Marian, at the same time offering

herself as a charming substitute. Marian was prepared to be the mental, the spiritual, and the physical mate of

Eileen was not prepared to be in truth and honor any of these. She was prepared to make any emergency of

life subservient to her own selfish desires. She was prepared to use any man with whom she came in contact

for the furtherance of any whim that at the hour possessed her. What she wanted was unbridled personal

Marian, almost numbed with physical fatigue and weeks of mental strain, came repeatedly against the dead

wall of ignorance when she tried to fathom the change that had taken place between herself and John Gilman

and between herself and Eileen. Daniel Thorne was an older man than Doctor Strong. He had accumulated

more property. Marian had sufficient means at her command to make it unnecessary for her to acquire a

profession or work for her living, but she had always been interested in and loved to plan houses and help her

friends with buildings they were erecting. When the silence and the loneliness of her empty home enveloped

her, she had begun, at first as a distraction, to work on the drawings for a home that an architect had made for

one of her neighbors. She had been able to suggest so many comforts and conveniences, and so to revise

these plans that, at first in a desultory way, later in real earnest, she had begun to draw plans for houses.

Then, being of methodical habit and mathematical mind, she began scaling up the plans and figuring on the

cost of building, and so she had worked until she felt that she was evolving homes that could be built for the

same amount of money and lived in with more comfort and convenience than the homes that many of her

To one spot in the valley she had gone from childhood as a secret place in which to dream and study. She had

loved that retreat until it had become a living passion with her. The more John Gilman neglected her, the

more she concentrated upon her plans, and when the hour came in which she realized what she had lost and

what Eileen had won, she reached the decision to sell her home, go to the city, and study until she knew

Then she would come back to the valley, buy the spot she coveted, build the house of which she dreamed,

and in it she would spend the remainder of her life making homes for the women who knew how to hold the

love of men. When she reached the city she had decided that if one could not have the best in life, one must

be content with the next best, and for her the next best would be homes for other people, since she might not

materialize the home she had dreamed for John Gilman and herself. She had not wanted to leave the valley.

She had not wanted to lose John Gilman. She had not wanted to part with the home she had been reared in.

Yet all of these things seemed to have been forced upon her. All Marian knew to do was to square her

shoulders, take a deep breath, put regrets behind her, and move steadily toward the best future she could

She carried letters of introduction to the San Francisco architects, Nicholson and Snow, who had offered a

prize for the best house that could be built in a reasonable time for fifteen thousand dollars. She meant to

offer her plans in this competition. Through friends she had secured a comfortable place in which to live and

work. She need undergo no hardships in searching for a home, in clothing herself, in paying for instruction in

Concerning Linda she could not resist a feeling of exultation. Linda was one of the friends in Lilac Valley

about whom Marian could think wholeheartedly and lovingly. Sometimes she had been on the point of

making a suggestion to Linda, and then she had contented herself with waiting in the thought that very soon

there must come to the girl a proper sense of her position and her rights. The experience of the previous night

taught Marian that Linda had arrived. She would no longer be the compliant little sister who would run

Eileen's errands, wait upon her guests and wear disreputable clothing. When Linda reached a point where she

was capable of the performance of the previous night, Marian knew that she would proceed to live up to her

blue china in every ramification of life. She did not know exactly how Linda would follow up the assertion of

her rights that she had made, but she did know that in some way she would follow it up, because Linda was a

She had been almost constantly with him during his life, very much alone since his death. She was a busy

young person. From Marian's windows she had watched the business of carrying on the wildflower garden

that Linda and her father had begun. What the occupation was that kept the light burning in Linda's room far

into the night Marian did not know. For a long time she had supposed that her studies were difficult for her,

and when she had asked Linda if it were not possible for her to prepare her lessons without so many hours of

midnight study she had caught the stare of frank amazement with which the girl regarded her and in that

surprised, almost grieved look she had realized that very probably a daughter of Alexander Strong, who

resembled him as Linda resembled him, would not be compelled to overwork to master the prescribed course

of any city high school. What Linda was doing during those midnight hours Marian did not know, but she did

know that she was not wrestling with mathematics and languagesat least not all of the time. So Marian

knowing Linda's gift with a pencil, had come to the conclusion that she was drawing pictures; but

circumstantial evidence was all she had as a basis for her conviction. Linda went her way silently and alone.

She was acquainted with everyone living in Lilac Valley, frank and friendly with all of them; aside from

Marian she had no intimate friend. Not another girl in the valley cared to follow Linda's pursuits or to

cultivate the acquaintance of the breeched, booted girl, constantly devoting herself to outdoor study with her

For an instant after Marian had boarded her train Linda stood looking at it, her heart so heavy that it pained

acutely. She had not said one word to make Marian feel that she did not want her to go. Not once had she put

forward the argument that Marian's going would leave her to depend entirely for human sympathy upon the

cook, and her guardian, also administrator of the Strong estate, John Gilman. So long as he was Marian's

friend Linda had admired John Gilman. She had gone to him for some measure of the companionship she had

missed in losing her father. Since Gilman had allowed himself to be captivated by Eileen, Linda had harbored

a feeling concerning him almost of contempt. Linda was so familiar with every move that Eileen made, so

thoroughly understood that there was a motive back of her every action, that she could not see why John

She had decided that the time had come when she would force Eileen to give her an allowance, however

small, for her own personal expenses, that she must in some way manage to be clothed so that she was not a

matter of comment even among the boys of her school, and she could see no reason why the absolute

personal liberty she always had enjoyed so long as she disappeared when Eileen did not want her and

appeared when she did, should not extend to her own convenience as well as Eileen's.

Life was a busy affair for Linda. She had not time to watch Marian's train from sight. She must hurry to the

nearest street car and make all possible haste or she would be late for her classes. Throughout the day she

worked with the deepest concentration, but she could not keep down the knowledge that Eileen would have

things to say, possibly things to do, when they met that evening, for Eileen was capable of disconcerting

hysteria. Previously Linda had remained stubbornly silent during any tirade in which Eileen chose to indulge.

She had allowed herself to be nagged into doing many things that she despised, because she would not assert

herself against apparent injustice. But since she had come fully to realize the results of Eileen's course of

action for Marian and for herself, she was deliberately arriving at the conclusion that hereafter she would

speak when she had a defense, and she would make it her business to let the sun shine on any dark spot that

Linda knew that if John Gilman were well acquainted with Eileen, he could not come any nearer to loving her

than she did. Such an idea as loving Eileen never had entered Linda's thoughts. To Linda, Eileen was not

lovable. That she should be expected to love her because they had the same parents and lived in the same

home seemed absurd. She was slightly disappointed, on reaching home, to find that Eileen was not there.

"Will the lady of the house dine with us this evening? she asked as she stood eating an apple in the kitchen.

"No," answered Linda. "That is why I was asking about her. I want to clear the atmosphere before I make my

"Now, don't ye be going too far, lambie," cautioned Katy "Ye young things make such an awful serious

business of life these days. In your scramble to wring artificial joy out of it you miss all the natural joy the

"It seems to me, Katy," said Linda slowly, "that you should put that statement the other way round. It seems

that life makes a mighty serious business for us young things, and it seems to me that if we don't get the right

start and have a proper foundation life Is going to be spoiled for us. One life is all I've got to live in this

world, and I would like it to be the interesting and the beautiful kind of life that Father lived."

"Katy," she said, leaning forward and looking intently into the earnest face of the woman before her, "Katy, I

have been thinking an awful lot lately. There is a question you could answer for me if you wanted to."

"Well, I don't see any raison," said Katy, "why I shouldn't answer ye any question ye'd be asking me."

Linda's eyes narrowed as they did habitually in deep thought She was looking past Katy down the sunlit

spaces of the wild garden that was her dearest possession, and then her eyes strayed higher to where the blue

walls that shut in Lilac Valley ranged their peaks against the sky. "Katy," she said, scarcely above her breath,

Katy stiffened. Her red face paled slightly. She turned her back and slowly slid into the oven the pie she was

carrying. She closed the door with more force than was necessary and then turned and deliberately studied

"Yes, I know 'some'," said Linda, "but you know I was too young to pay much attention, and Daddy managed

always to make me so happy that I never realized until he was gone that he not only had been my father but

"Yes," said Katy deliberately, "I know what ye mean, lambie, and I'll tell ye the truth as far as I know it. She

managed your father, she pampered him, but she deceived him every day, just about little things. She always

made the household accounts bigger than they were, and used the extra money for Miss Eileen and

herselfthings like that. I'm thinkin' he never knew it. I'm thinking he loved her deeply and trusted her

complete. I know what ye're getting at. She was not enough like Eileen to make him unhappy with her. He

might have been if he had known all there was to know, but for his own sake I was not the one to give her

away, though she constantly made him think that I was extravagant and wasteful in me work."Linda's eyes

"It puzzles me," said Linda slowly. "The more I think about it, the less I can understand why, if we are sisters,

we would not accidentally resemble each other a tiny bit in some way, and I must say I can't see that we do

"No," said Katy, "ye were just as different as ye are now when I came to this house new and ye were both

"And we are going to be as different and to keep on growing more different every day of our lives, because

red war breaks out the minute Eileen comes home. I haven't a notion what she will say to me for what I did

last night and what I am going to do in the future, but I have a definite idea as to what I am going to say to

"I wouldn't regret it," said Linda, "if I took Eileen by the shoulders and shook her till I shook the rouge off

her cheek, and the brilliantine off her hair, and a million mean little subterfuges out of her soul. You know

Eileen is lovely when she is natural, and if she would be straightoffthebat square, I would be proud to be

"Why, Linda, child, ye are just plain crazy," said Katy. "What kind of notions are you getting into your

"I hear the front door," said Linda, "and I am going to march straight to battle. She's going up the front stairs.

I did mean to shortcut up the back, but, come to think of it, I have served my apprenticeship on the back

stairs. I believe I'll ascend the front myself. Goodbye, darlin', wish me luck."

Linda swung Katy around, hugged her tight, and dropped a kiss on the top of her faithful head.

"Ye just stick right up for your rights," Katy advised her. "Ye're a great big girl. 'Tain't going to be long till

ye're eighteen. But mind your old Katy about going too far. If ye lose your temper and catspit, it won't get

ye anywhere. The fellow that keeps the coolest can always do the best headwork."

Then Linda walked down the hall, climbed the front stairs, and presented herself at Eileen's door, there to

receive one of the severest shocks of her young life. Eileen had tossed her hat and fur upon a couch, seated

herself at her dressing table, and was studying her hair in the effort to decide whether she could fluff it up

sufficiently to serve for the evening or whether she must take it down and redress it. At Linda's step in the

doorway she turned a smiling face upon her and cried: "Hello, little sister, come in and tell me the news."

Linda stopped as if dazed. The wonderment in which she looked at Eileen was stamped all over her. A

surprised braid of hair hung over one of her shoulders. Her hands were surprised, and the skirt of her dress,

"Well, I'll be darned!" she ejaculated, and then walked to where she could face Eileen, and seated herself

"Linda," said Eileen sweetly, "you would stand far better chance of being popular and making a host of

friends if you would not be so coarse. I am quite sure you never heard Mama or me use such an expression."

"Look here, Eileen, you needn't try any 'perfect lady' business on me," she said shortly. "Do you think I have

forgotten the extent of your vocabulary when the curling iron gets too hot or you fail to receive an invitation

Linda never had been capable of understanding Eileen. At that minute she could not know that Eileen had

been facing facts through the long hours of the night and all through the day, and that she had reached the

decision that for the future her only hope of working Linda to her will was to conciliate her, to ignore the

previous night, to try to put their relationship upon the old basis by pretending that there never had been a

"On rare occasions, I grant it. Of course a little swear slips out sometimes. What I am trying to point out is

"How did you ever get the idea," said Linda, "that I wanted to be popular and have hosts of friends? What

"Let's cut this," said Linda tersely. "I am not your child. I'm getting to the place where I have serious doubt as

to whether I am your sister or not. If I am, it's not my fault, and the same clay never made two objects quite

so different. I came up here to fight, and I'm going to see it through. I'm on the warpath, so you may take your

"Every single thing that you have done that was unfair to me all my life," said Linda. "Since all of it has been

deliberate you probably know more about the details than I do, so I'll just content myself with telling you that

for the future, last night marked a change in the relations between us. I am going to be eighteen before so

very long, and I have ceased to be your maid or your waitress or your dupe. You are not going to work me

one single time when I have got brains to see through your schemes after this. Hereafter I take my place in

Eileen looked at Linda steadily, trying to see to the depths of her soul. She saw enough to convince her that

"Hm," she said, "have I been so busy that I have failed to notice what a great girl you are getting?"

"Perhaps you are too big," continued Eileen, "to be asked to wait on the table any more."

"I certainly am," retorted Linda, "and I am also too big to wear such shoes or such a dress as I have on at the

present min. ute. I know all about the war and the inflation of prices and the reduction in income, but I know

also that if there is enough to run the house, and dress you, and furnish you such a suite of rooms as you're

enjoying right now, there is enough to furnish me suitable clothes, a comfortable bedroom and a place where

I can leave my work without putting away everything I am doing each time I step from the room. I told you

four years ago that you might take the touring car and do what you pleased with it. I have never asked what

you did or what you got out of it, so I'll thank you to observe equal silence about anything I choose to do now

with the runabout, which I reserved for myself. I told you to take this suite, and this is the first time that I

Linda waved an inclusive hand toward the fully equipped, dainty dressing table, over rugs of pale blue, and

"So now I'll ask you to keep off while I do what I please about the library and the billiard room. I'll try to get

along without much money in doing what I desire there, but I must have some new clothes. I want money to

buy me a pair of new shoes for school. I want a pair of pumps suitable for evenings when there are guests to

dinner. I want a couple of attractive school dresses. This old serge is getting too hot and too worn for

common decency. And I also want a couple of dresses something like you are wearing, for afternoons and

"Eileen," said Linda in a low tense voice, "I have reached the place where even the BOYS of the high school

are twitting me about how I am dressed, and that is the limit. I have stood it for three years from the girls. I

am an adept in pretending that I don't see, and I don't hear. I have got to the point where I am perfectly

capable of walking into your wardrobe and taking out enough of the clothes there and selling them at a

secondhand store to buy me what I require to dress me just plainly and decently. So take warning. I don't

know where you are going to get the money, but you are going to get it. If you would welcome a suggestion

from me, come home only half the times you dine yourself and your girl friends at tearooms and cafes in the

city, and you will save my share that way. I am going to give you a chance to total your budget, and then I

demand one half of the income from Father's estate above household expenses; and if I don't get it, on the day

I am eighteen I shall go to John Gilman and say to him what I have said to you, and I shall go to the bank and

demand that a division be made there, and that a separate bank book be started for me."

Linda's amazement on entering the room had been worthy of note. Eileen's at the present minute was beyond

"You don't mean that," she gasped in a quivering voice when at last she could speak.

"I can see, Eileen, that you are taken unawares," said Linda. "I have had four long years to work up to this

hour. Hasn't it even dawned on you that this worm was ever going to turn? You know exquisite moths and

butterflies evolve in the canyons from very unprepossessing and lowly living worms. You are spending your

life on the butterfly stunt. Have I been such a weak worm that it hasn't ever occurred to you that I might want

Eileen's face was an ugly red, her hands were shaking, her voice was unnatural, but she controlled her temper.

"Of course," she said, "I have always known that the time would come, after you finished school and were of

"No, you never knew anything of the kind," said Linda bluntly, "because I have not the slightest ambition to

enter society either now or then. All I am asking is to enter the high school in a commonly decent, suitable

dress; to enter our dining room as a daughter; to enter a workroom decently equipped for my convenience.

You needn't be surprised if you hear some changes going on in the billiard room and see some changes going

on in the library. And if I feel that I can muster the nerve to drive the runabout, it's my car, it's up to me."

"Because I haven't dared till the present is no reason why I should deprive myself of every single pleasure in

life," said Linda. "You spend your days doing exactly what you please; driving that runabout for Father was

my one soulsatisfying diversion. Why shouldn't I do the thing I love most, if I can muster the nerve?"

Linda arose, and walking over to a table, picked up a magazine lying among some small packages that Eileen

She turned in her hands and leafed through the pages of a most attractive magazine, Everybody's Home. It

was devoted to poetry, good fiction, and everything concerning home life from beef to biscuits, and from rugs

"I saw it on a newsstand," said Eileen. "I was at lunch with some girls who had a copy and they were talking

about some articles by somebody named somethingMeredith, I think it was Jane Meredith, maybe she's

a Californian, and she is advocating the queer idea that we go back to nature by trying modern cooking on the

food the aborigines ate. If we find it good then she recommends that we specialize on the growing of these

"No, not that," said Eileen. "She is not proposing to evolve new forms. She is proposing to show us how to

make delicious dishes for luncheon or dinner from wild things now going to waste. What the girls said was so

interesting that I thought I'd get a copy and if I see anything good I'll turn it over to Katy."

"Why you might have some of them in your wild garden, or you could easily find enough to tryall the

"So it should," said Linda. "I quite agree with you. Did I understand you to say that I should be ready to go to

Again the color deepened in Eileen's face, again she made a visible effort at selfcontrol.

"Oh, Linda," she said, "what is the use of being so hard? You will make them think at the bank that I have not

"_I_?"said Linda, "_I_ will make them think? Don't you think it is YOU who will make them think? Will you

"If I show you the books," said Eileen, "if I divide what is left after the bills are paid so that you say yourself

"What I ought to do is exactly what I have said I would do," she said tersely, "but if you are going to put it on

that basis I have no desire to hurt you or humiliate you in public. If you do that, I can't see that I have any

reason to complain, so we'll call it a bargain and we'll say no more about it until the first of the month, unless

the spirit moves you, after taking a good square look at me, to produce some shoes and a school dress

She went to her own room, slipped off her school dress, brushed her hair, and put on the skirt and blouse she

had worn the previous evening, these being the only extra clothing she possessed. As she straightened her

"My, aren't you coming on!" she said to the figure in the glass. "Dressing for dinner! First thing you know

When Eileen came down to dinner that evening Linda understood at a glance that an effort was to be made to

efface thoroughly from the mind of John Gilman all memory of the Eileen of the previous evening. She had

decided on redressing her hair, while she wore one of her most becoming and attractive gowns. To Linda and

Katy during the dinner she was simply charming. Having said what she wanted to say and received the

assurance she desired, Linda accepted her advances cordially and displayed such charming proclivities

herself that Eileen began covertly to watch her, and as she watched there slowly grew in her brain the

conviction that something had happened to Linda. At once she began studying deeply in an effort to learn

what it might be. There were three paramount things in Eileen's cosmos that could happen to a girl: She could

have lovely clothing. Linda did not have it. She could have money and influential friends. Since Marian's

going Linda had practically no friend; she was merely acquainted with almost everyone living in Lilac

Valley. She could have a lover. Linda had none. But stay! Eileen's thought halted at the suggestion. Maybe

she had! She had been left completely, to her own devices when she was not wanted about the house. She had

been mingling with hundreds of boys and girls in high school. She might have met some man repeatedly on

the street cars, going to and from school. In school she might have attracted the son of some wealthy and

influential family; which was the only kind of son Eileen chose to consider in connection with Linda.

Through Eileen's brain ran bits of the conversation of the previous evening. She recalled that the men she had

intended should spend the evening waiting on her and paying her pretty compliments had spent it eating like

hungry men, laughing and jesting with Linda and Marian, giving every evidence of a satisfaction with their

entertainment that never had been evinced with the best brand of attractions she had to offer.

Eileen was willing to concede that Marian Thorne had been a beautiful girl, and she had known, previous to

the disaster, that it was quite as likely that any man might admire Marian's flashing dark beauty as her blonde

loveliness. Between them then it would have been merely a question of taste on the part of the man. Since

Marian's dark head had turned ashen, Eileen had simply eliminated her at one sweep. That white hair would

brand Marian anywhere as an old woman. Very likely no man ever would want to marry her. Eileen was sure

she would not want to if she were a man. No wonder John Gilman had ceased to be attracted by a girl's face

As for Linda, Eileen never had considered her at all except as a convenience to serve her own purposes. Last

night she had learned that Linda had a brain, that she had wit, that she could say things to which men of the

world listened with interest. She began to watch Linda. She appraised with deepest envy the dark hair curling

naturally on her temples. She wondered how hair that curled naturally could be so thick and heavy, and she

thought what a crown of glory would adorn Linda's head when the day came to coil those long dark braids

around it and fasten them with flashing pins. She drew some satisfaction from the sunburned face and lean

figure before her, but it was not satisfaction of soulsustaining quality. There was beginning to be something

disquieting about Linda. A roundness was creeping over her lean frame; a glow was beginning to color her

lips and cheek bones; a dewy look could be surprised in her dark eyes occasionally. She had the effect of a

creature with something yeasty bottled inside it that was beginning to ferment and might effervesce at any

minute. Eileen had been so surprised the previous evening and again before dinner, that she made up her

mind that hereafter one might expect almost anything from Linda. She would no longer follow a suggestion

unless the suggestion accorded with her sense of right and justice. It was barely possible that it might be

required to please her inclinations. Eileen's mind worked with unbelievable swiftness. She tore at her subject

like a vulture tearing at a feast, and like a vulture she reached the vitals swiftly. She prefaced her question

with a dry laugh. Then she leaned forward and asked softly: "Linda, dear, why haven't you told me?"

Linda's eyes were so clear and honest as they met Eileen's that she almost hesitated.

"Oh, I haven't narrowed to an individual," said Linda largely "You have noticed a flock of boys following me

from school and hanging around the front door? I have such hosts to choose from that it's going to take a

particularly splendid knight on a snow white chargerI think 'charger' is the proper wordto capture my

Eileen was satisfied. There wasn't any he. She might for a short time yet cut Linda's finances to the extreme

limit. Whenever a man appeared on the horizon she would be forced to make a division at least approaching

Linda followed Eileen to the living room and sat down with a book until John Gilman arrived. She had a

desire to study him for a few minutes. She was going to write Marian a letter that night. She wanted to know

if she could honestly tell her that Gilman appeared lonely and seemed to miss her. Katy had no chance to

answer the bell when it rang. Eileen was in the hall. Linda could not tell what was happening from the

murmur of voices. Presently John and Eileen entered the room, and as Linda greeted him she did have the

impression that he appeared unusually thoughtful and worried. She sat for half an hour, taking slight part in

the conversation. Then she excused herself and went to her room, and as she went she knew that she could

not honestly write Marian what she had hoped, for in thirty minutes by the clock Eileen's blandishments had

worked, and John Gilman was looking at her as if she were the most exquisite and desirable creature in

Slowly Linda climbed the stairs and entered her room. She slid the bolt of her door behind her, turned on the

lights, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a heap of materials she scattered them over a small table, and

picking up her pencil, she sat gazing at the sheet before her for some time. Then slowly she began writing:

It appeals to me that, far as modern civilization has gone in culinary efforts, we have not nearly reached the

limits available to us as I pointed out last month. We consider ourselves capable of preparing and producing

elaborate banquets, yet at no time are we approaching anything even to compare in lavishness and delicacy

with the days of Lucullus. We are not feasting on baked swans, peacock tongues and drinking our pearls. I

am not recommending that we should revive the indulgence of such lavish and useless expenditure, but I

would suggest that if we tire with the sameness of our culinary efforts, we at least try some of the new dishes

described in this department, established for the sole purpose of their introduction. In so doing we accomplish

a multiple purpose. We enlarge the resources of the southwest. We tease stale appetites with a new tang. We

offer the world something different, yet native to us. We use modern methods on Indian material and the

results are most surprising. In trying these dishes I would remind you that few of us cared for oysters, olives,

celeryalmost any fruit or vegetable one could mention on first trial. Try several times and be sure you

prepare dishes exactly right before condemning them as either fad or fancy. These are very real, nourishing

and delicious foods that are being offered you. Here is a salad that would have intrigued the palate of

Lucullus, himself. If you do not believe me, try it. The vegetable is slightly known by a few native

mountaineers and ranchers. Botanists carried it abroad where under the name of winterpurslane it is used in

France and England for greens or salad, while remaining practically unknown at home. Boiled and seasoned

as spinach it makes equally good greens. But it is in salad that it stands preeminent.

Go to any canyonI shall not reveal the name of my particular canyonand locate a bed of miner's lettuce

(Montia perfoliata). Growing in rank beds beside a cold, clean stream, you will find these pulpy, exquisitely

shaped, pungent round leaves from the center of which lifts a tiny head of misty white lace, sending up a

palateteasing, spicy perfume. The crisp, pinkish stems snap in the fingers. Be sure that you wash the leaves

carefully so that no lurking germs cling to them. Fill your salad bowl with the crisp leaves, from which the

flowerhead has been plucked. For dressing, dice a teacup of the most delicious bacon you can obtain and fry

it to a crisp brown together with a small sliced onion. Add to the fat two tablespoons of sugar, half a teaspoon

of mustard; salt will scarcely be necessary the bacon will furnish that. Blend the fat, sugar, and mustard, and

pour in a measure of the best apple vinegar, diluted to taste. Bring this mixture to the boiling point, and when

it has cooled slightly pour it over the lettuce leaves, lightly turning with a silver fork. Garnish the edge of the

dish with a deep border of the fresh leaves bearing their lace of white bloom intact, around the edge of the

bowl, and sprinkle on top the sifted yolks of two hardboiled eggs, heaping the diced whites in the center.

She made a few corrections here and there, and picking up a colored pencil, she deftly sketched in a head

piece of delicate sprays of miners' lettuce tipped at differing angles, fringy white with bloom. Below she

printed: "A delicious Indian salad. The second of a series of new dishes to be offered made from materials

used by the Indians. Compounded and tested in her own diet kitchen by the author."

Swiftly she sketched a tail piece representing a table top upon which sat a temptinglooking big salad bowl

filled with fresh green leaves, rimmed with a row of delicate white flowers, from which you could almost

scent a teasing delicate fragrance arising; and beneath, in a clear, firm hand, she stroked in the name, Jane

Meredith. She went over her work carefully, then laid it flat on a piece of cardboard, shoved it into an

envelope, directed it to the editor of Everybody's Home, laid it inside her geometry, and wrote her letter to

In the morning on her way to the street car she gaily waved to a passing automobile going down Lilac Valley,

in which sat John Gilman and Peter Morrison and his architect, and as they were driving in the direction from

which she had come, Linda very rightly surmised that they were going to pick up Eileen and make a tour of

the valley, looking for available building locations; and she wondered why Eileen had not told her that they

were coming. Linda had been right about the destination of the car. It turned in at the Strong driveway and

stopped at the door. John Gilman went to ring the bell and learn if Eileen were ready. Peter followed him.

Henry Anderson stepped from the car and wandered over the lawn, looking at the astonishing array of bushes,

From one to another he went, fingering the waxy leaves, studying the brilliant flower faces. Finally turning a

corner and crossing the wild garden, to which he paid slight attention, he started down the other side of the

house. Here an almost overpowering odor greeted his nostrils, and he went over to a large tree covered with

rough, dark green, almost brownish, lanceshaped leaves, each branch terminating in a heavy spray of

yellowishgreen flowers, whose odor was of cloying sweetness. The bees were buzzing over it. It was not a

tree with which he was familiar, and stepping back, he looked at it carefully. Then at its base, winddriven

into a crevice between the roots, his attention was attracted to a crumpled sheet of paper, upon which he

could see lines that would have attracted the attention of any architect. He went forward instantly, picked up

He looked at the reverse of the sheet, his face becoming more intent every minute. When he heard Peter

Morrison's voice calling him he hastily thrust the paper into his coat pocket; but he had gone only a few steps

when he stopped, glanced keenly over the house and lawn, turned his back, and taking the sheet from his

pocket, he smoothed it out, folded it carefully, and put it in an inside pocket. Then he joined the party.

At once they set out to examine the available locations that yet remained in Lilac Valley. Nature provided

them a wonderful day of snappy sunshine and heady sea air. Spring favored them with lilac walls at their

bluest, broken here and there with the rose misted white mahogany. The violet nightshade was beginning to

add deeper color to the hills in the sunniest wild spots. The panicles of mahonia bloom were showing their

gold color. Wild flowers were lifting leaves of feather and lace everywhere, and most agreeable on the cool

morning air was a faint breath of California sage. Up one side of the valley, weaving in and out, up and down,

over the foothills they worked their way. They stopped for dinner at one of the beautiful big hotels,

practically filled with Eastern tourists. Eileen never had known a prouder moment than when she took her

place at the head of the table and presided over the dinner which was served to three most attractive

specimens of physical manhood, each of whom was unusually well endowed with brain, all flattering her

with the most devoted attention. This triumph she achieved in a dining room seating hundreds of people, its

mirrorlined walls reflecting her exquisite image from many angles, to the click of silver, and the running

accompaniment of many voices. What she had expected to accomplish in her own dining room had come to

her before a large audience, in which, she had no doubt, there were many envious women. Eileen rayed

loveliness like a Mariposa lily, and purred in utter contentment like a deftly stroked kitten.

When they parted in the evening Peter Morrison had memoranda of three locations that he wished to

consider. That he might not seem to be unduly influenced or to be giving the remainder of Los Angeles

County its just due, he proposed to motor around for a week before reaching an ultimate decision, but in his

heart he already had decided that somewhere near Los Angeles he would build his home, and as yet he had

On her way to school that morning Linda stopped at the post office and pasted the required amount of stamps

upon the package that she was mailing to New York. She hurried from her last class that afternoon to the city

directory to find the street and number of James Brothers, figuring that the firm with whom Marian dealt

would be the proper people for her to consult. She had no difficulty in finding the place for which she was

searching, and she was rather agreeably impressed with the men to whom she talked. She made arrangements

with their buyer to call at her home in Lilac Valley at nine o'clock the following Saturday morning to

Then she went to one of the leading book stores of the city and made inquiries which guided her to a reliable

secondhand book dealer, and she arranged to be ready to receive his representative at ten o'clock on

Reaching home she took a note book and pencil, and studied the billiard room and the library, making a list

of the furniture which she did not actually need. After that she began on the library shelves, listing such

medical works as were of a technical nature. Books of fiction, history, art, and biography, and those books

written by her father she did not include. She found that she had a long task which would occupy several

evenings. Her mind was methodical and she had been with her father through sufficient business transactions

to understand that in order to drive a good bargain she must know how many volumes she had to offer and

the importance of their authors as medical authorities; she should also know the exact condition of each set of

books. Since she had made up her mind to let them go, and she knew the value of many of the big,

leatherbound volumes, she determined that she would not sell them until she could secure the highest

Two months previously she would have consulted John Gilman and asked him to arrange the transaction for

her. Since he had allowed himself to be duped so easilyor at least it had seemed easy to Linda; for, much

as she knew of Eileen, she could not possibly know the weeks of secret plotting, the plans for unexpected

meetings, the trumpedup business problems necessary to discuss, the deliberate flaunting of her physical

charms before him, all of which had made his conquest extremely hard for Eileen, but Linda, seeing only

results, had thought it contemptibly easyshe would not ask John Gilman anything. She would go ahead on

She counted on Saturday to dispose of the furniture. The books might go at her leisure. Then the first of the

week she could select such furniture as she desired in order to arrange the billiard room for her study. If she

had a suitable place in which to work in seclusion, there need be no hurry about the library. She

conscientiously prepared all the lessons required in her school course for the next day and then, stacking her

books, she again unlocked the drawer opened the previous evening, and taking from it the same materials, set

Botanists have failed to mention that there is any connection between asparagus, originally a product of salt

marshes, and Yucca, a product of the alkaline desert. Very probably there is no botanical relationship, but

these two plants are alike in flavor. From the alkaline, sunbeaten desert where the bayonet plant thrusts up a

tender bloom head six inches in height, it slowly increases in stature as it travels across country more

frequently rain washed, and winds its way beside mountain streams to where in more fertile soil and the same

sunshine it develops magnificent specimens from ten to fifteen and more feet in height. The plant grows a

number of years before it decides to flower. When it reaches maturity it throws up a bloom stem as tender as

the delicate head of asparagus, thick as one's upper arm, and running to twice one's height. This bloom stem

in its early stages is colored the pale pink of asparagus, with faint touches of yellow, and hints of blue. At

maturity it breaks into a gorgeous head of lavendertinted, creamy pendent flowers covering the upper third

of its height, billowing out slightly in the center, so that from a distance the waxen torch takes on very much

the appearance of a flaming candle. For this reason, in Mexico, where the plant flourishes in even greater

abundance than in California, with the exquisite poetry common to the tongue and heart of the Spaniard,

Yucca Whipplei has been commonly named "Our Lord's Candle." At the most delicate time of their growth

these candlesticks were roasted and eaten by the Indians. Based upon this knowledge, I would recommend

Take the most succulent young bloom stems when they have exactly the appearance of an asparagus head at

its moment of delicious perfection. With a sharp knife, cut them in circles an inch in depth. Arrange these in a

shallow porcelain baking dish, sprinkle with salt, dot them with butter, add enough water to keep them from

sticking and burning. Bake until thoroughly tender. Use a pancake turner to slide the rings to a hot platter,

and garnish with circles of hardboiled egg. This you will find an extremely delicate and appetizing dish.

The second recipe I would offer is to treat this vegetable precisely as you would creamed asparagus. Cut the

stalks in sixinch lengths, quarter them to facilitate cooking and handling, and boil in salted water. Drain,

arrange in a hot dish, and pour over a carefully made cream sauce. I might add that one stalk would furnish

sufficient material for several families. This dish should be popular in southwestern states where the plant

grows profusely; and to cultivate these plants for shipping to Eastern markets would be quite as feasible as

I have found both these dishes peculiarly appetizing, but I should be sorry if, in introducing Yucca as a food,

I became instrumental in the extermination of this universal and wonderfully beautiful plant. For this reason I

have hesitated about including Yucca among these articles; but when I see the bloom destroyed ruthlessly by

thousands who cut it to decorate touring automobiles and fruit and vegetable stands beside the highways, who

carry it from its native location and stick it in the parching sun of the seashore as a temporary shelter, I feel

that the bloom stems might as well be used for food as to be so ruthlessly wasted.

The plant is hardy in the extreme, growing in the most unfavorable places, clinging tenaciously to sheer

mountain and canyon walls. After blooming and seeding the plant seems to have thrown every particle of

nourishment it contains into its development, it dries out and dies (the spongy wood is made into pincushions

for the art stores); but from the roots there spring a number of young plants, which, after a few years of

growth, mature and repeat their life cycle, while other young plants develop from the widely scattered seeds.

The Spaniards at times call the plant Quiota. This word seems to be derived from quiotl, which is the Aztec

name for Agave, from which plant a drink not unlike beer is produced, and suggests the possibility that there

might have been a time when the succulent flower stem of the Yucca furnished drink as well as food for the

After carefully rereading and making several minor corrections, Linda picked up her pencil, and across the

top of a sheet of heavy paper sketched the peaks of a chain of mountains. Across the base she drew a stretch

of desert floor, bristling with the thorns of many different cacti brilliant with their gold, pink, and red bloom,

At the left she painstakingly drew a huge plant of yucca with a perfect circle of bayonets, from the center of

which uprose the gigantic flower stem the length of her page, and on the misty bloom of the flaming tongue

she worked quite as late as Marian Thorne had ever seen a light burning in her window. When she had

finished her drawing she studied it carefully a long time, adding a touch here and there, and then she said

softly: "There, Daddy, I feel that even you would think that a faithful reproduction Tomorrow night I'll paint

John Gilman saw the light from Linda's window when he brought Eileen home that night, and when he left he

glanced that way again, and was surprised to see the room still lighted, and the young figure bending over a

worktable. He stood very still for a few minutes, wondering what could keep Linda awake so far into the

night, and while his thoughts were upon her he wondered, too, why she did not care to have beautiful clothes

such as Eileen wore; and then he went further and wondered why, when she could be as entertaining as she

had been the night she joined them at dinner, she did not make her appearance oftener; and then, because the

mind is a queer thing, and he had wondered about a given state of affairs, he went a step further, and

wondered whether the explanation lay in Linda's inclinations or in Eileen's management, and then his thought

He was a patient man. He had allowed his reason and better judgment to be swayed by Eileen's exquisite

beauty and her blandishments. He did not regret having discovered before it was too late that Marian Thorne

was not the girl he had thought her. He wanted a wife cut after the clingingvine pattern. He wanted to be the

dominating figure in his home. It had not taken Eileen long to teach him that Marian was selfassertive and

would do a large share of dominating herself. He had thought that he was perfectly satisfied and very happy

with Eileen; yet that day he repeatedly had felt piqued and annoyed with her. She had openly cajoled and

flirted with Henry Anderson past a point which was agreeable for any man to see his sweetheart go with

another man With Peter Morrison she had been unspeakably charming in a manner with which John was very

He turned up his coat collar, thrust his hands in his pockets, and swore softly. Looking straight ahead of him,

he should have seen a stretch of level sidewalk, bordered on one hand by lacy, tropical foliage, on the other,

by sheets of level green lawn, broken everywhere by the uprising boles of great trees, clumps of rare vines,

design' vine covered, hushed for the night. What he really saw was a small plateau, sun illumined, at the foot

of a mountain across the valley, where the lilac wall was the bluest, where the sun shone slightly more golden

than anywhere else in the valley, where huge live oaks outstretched rugged arms, where the air had a tang of

salt, a tinge of sage, an odor of orange, shot through with snowy coolness, thrilled with bird song, and the

laughing chuckle of a big spring breaking from the foot of the mountain. They had left the road and followed

a narrow, screened path by which they came unexpectedly into this opening. They had stood upon it in

wordless enchantment, looking down the slope beneath it, across the peace of the valley, to the blue ranges

John Gilman had been looking at a view which included Eileen. She lifted her face, flushed and exquisite, to

Peter Morrison and answered in a breathless undertone, yet John had distinctly heard her:

"How wonderful it would be if we were at your house. Oh, I envy the woman who shares this with you !"

It had not been anything in particular, yet all day it had teased John Gilman's sensibilities. He felt ashamed of

himself for not being more enthusiastic as he searched records and helped to locate the owner of that

particular spot. To John, there was a new tone in Peter's voice, a possessive light in his eyes as he studied the

location, and made excursions in several directions, to fix in his mind the exact position of the land.

He had indicated what he considered the topographical location for a housestood on it facing the valley,

and stepped the distance suitably far away to set a garage and figured on a short private road down to the

highway. He very plainly was deeply prepossessed with a location John Gilman blamed himself for not

having found first. Certainly nature had here grown and walled a dream garden in which to set a house of

dreams. So, past midnight, Gilman stood in the sunshine, looking at the face of the girl he had asked to marry

him and who had said that she would; and a small doubt crept into his heart, and a feeling that perhaps life

might be different for him if Peter Morrison decided to come to Lilac Valley to build his home. Then the

sunlight faded, night closed in, but as he went his homeward way John Gilman was thinking, thinking deeply

"Katy, me blessing," she said gaily, "did I ever point out to you the interesting fact that I was born on

Saturday? And a devilish piece of luck it was, for I have been hustling ever since. It's bad enough to have

been born on Monday and spoiled wash day, but I call Saturday the vanishing point, the end of the extreme

"I am not needing ye, lambie," she said. "Is it big business in the canyon ye're having today? Shall I be ready

to be cooking up one of them Godforsaken Red Indian messes for ye when ye come back?"

"Hiss, Katy," she said. "That is a dark secret. Don't you be forgetting yourself and saying anything like that

"Well, I did think when ye began it," said Katy, "that of all the wild foolishness ye and your pa had ever gone

through with, that was the worst, but that last mess ye worked out was so tasty to the tongue that I thought of

Linda caught Katy and swung her around the kitchen in a wild war dance. Her gayest laugh bubbled clear

"Katy," she said, "if you had lain awake all night trying to say something that would particularly please me,

you couldn't have done better. That was a quaint little phrase and a true little phrase, and I know a little spot

that it will fit exactly. What am I doing today? Well, several things, Katy. First, anything you need about the

house. Next, I am going to empty the billiard room and sell some of the excess furniture of the library, and

with the returns I am going to buy me a rug and a table and some tools to work with, so I won't have to clutter

up my bedroom with my lessons and things I bring in that I want to save. And then I am going to sell the

technical stuff from the library and use that money where it will be of greatest advantage to me. And then,

Linda hesitated. Katy stood very still, thinking intently, but finally she said: "That's all right; ye have got

good common sense; your nerves are steady; your pa drilled ye fine. Many's the time he has bragged to me

behind your back what a fine little driver he was making of ye. I don't know a girl of your age anywhere that

has less enjoyment than ye. If it would be giving ye any happiness to be driving that car, ye just go ahead and

drive it, lambie, but ye promise me here and now that ye will be mortal careful. In all my days I don't think I

"Of course I'll be careful, Katy," said Linda. "That car was not bought for its beauty. Its primal object in this

world was to arrive. Gee, how we shot curves, and coasted down the canyons, and gassed up on the level

when some poor soul went batty from nerve strain! The truth is, Katy, that you can't drive very slowly. You

have got to go the speed for which it was built. But I have had my training. I won't forget. I adore that car,

Katy, and I don't know how I have ever kept my fingers off it this long. Today it gets a bath and a facial

treatment, and when 1 have thought up some way to meet my big problem, you're going to have a ride, Katy,

that will quite uplift your soul. We'll go scooting through the canyons, and whizzing around the mountains,

"Now, easy, lambie, easy," said Katy. "Ye're planning to speed that thing before ye've got it off the jacks."

"No, that was mere talk," said Linda. "But, Katy, this is my great day. I feel in my bones that I shall have

enough money by night to get me some new tires, which I must have before I can start out in safety."

"Of course ye must, honey. I would just be tickled to pieces to let ye have what ye need."

"You blessed old darling," she said. "Of course you would, but I don't need it, Katy. I can sit on the floor to

work, if I must, and instead of taking the money from the billiard table to buy a worktable, I can buy tires

with that. But here's another thing I want to tell you, Katy. This afternoon a male biped is coming to this

house, and he's not coming to see Eileen. His name is Donald Whiting, and when he tells you it is, and stands

very straight and takes off his hat, and looks you in the eye and says, 'Calling on Miss Linda Strong,' walk

him into the living room, Katy, and seat him in the best chair and put a book beside him and the morning

paper; and don't you forget to do it with a flourish. He is nothing but a highschool kid, but he's the first boy

that ever in all my days asked to come to see me so it's a big event; and I wish to my soul I had something

"Well, with all the clothes in this house," said Katy; and then she stopped and shut her lips tight and looked at

"I know it," nodded Linda in acquiescence; "I know what you think; but never mind. Eileen has agreed to

make me a fair allowance the first of the month, and if that isn't sufficient, I may possibly figure up some way

to do some extra work that will bring me a few honest pennies, so I can fuss up enough to look feminine at

times, Katy. In the meantime, farewell, oh, my belovedest. Call me at halfpast eight, so I will be ready for

Then Linda went to the garage and began operations. She turned the hose on the car and washed the dust

from it carefully. Then she dried it with the chamois skins as she often had done before. She carefully

examined the cushioning, and finding it dry and hard, she gave it a bath of olive oil and wiped and

manipulated it. She cleaned the engine with extreme care. At one minute she was running to Katy for

kerosene to pour through the engine to loosen the carbon. At another she was telephoning for the delivery of

oil, gasoline, and batteries for which she had no money to pay, so she charged them to Eileen, ordering the

bill to be sent on the first of the month. It seemed to her that she had only a good start when Katy came after

The business of appraising the furniture was short, and Linda was well satisfied with the price she was

offered for it. After the man had gone she showed Katy the pieces she had marked to dispose of, and told her

when they would be called for. She ate a few bites of lunch while waiting for the book man, and the results of

her business with him quite delighted Linda. She had not known that the value of books had risen with the

price of everything else. The man with whom she dealt had known her father. He had appreciated the strain in

her nature which made her suggest that he should number and appraise the books, but she must be allowed

time to go through each volume in order to remove any scraps of paper or memoranda which her father so

frequently left in books to which he was referring. He had figured carefully and he had made Linda a far

higher price than could have been secured by a man. As the girl went back to her absorbing task in the

garage, she could see her way clear to the comforts and conveniences and the material that she needed for her

work. When .she reached the car she patted it as if it had been a living creature.

"Cheer up, nice old thing," she said gaily. "I know how to get new tires for you, and you shall drink all the

gasoline and oil your tummy can hold. Now let me see. What must I do next? I must get you off your jacks;

and oh, my gracious there are the grease cups, and that's a nasty job, but it must be done; and what is the use

Linda began work in utter absorption. She succeeded in getting the car off the jacks. She was lying on her

back under it, filling some of the most inaccessible grease cups, and she was softly singing as she worked:

At that minute Donald Whiting swung down the street, turned in at the Strong residence, and rang the bell.

Eileen was coming down the stairs, dressed for the street. She had inquired for Linda, and Katy had told her

that she thought Miss Linda had decided to begin using her car, and that she was in the garage working on it.

To Eileen's credit it may be said that she had not been told that a caller was expected. Linda never before had

had a caller and, as always, Eileen was absorbed in her own concerns. Had she got the rouge a trifle brighter

on one cheek than on the other? Was the powder evenly distributed? Would the veil hold the handmade curls

in exactly the proper place? When the bell rang her one thought might have been that some of her friends

were calling for her. She opened the door, and when she learned that Linda was being asked for, it is possible

that she mistook the clean, interesting, and welldressed youngster standing before her for a mechanic. What

she said was: "Linda's working on her car. Go around to the left and you will find her in the garage, and for

heaven's sake, get it right before you let her start out, for we've had enough horror in this family from motor

Then she closed the door before him and stood buttoning her gloves; a wicked and malicious smile spreading

"Just possibly," she said, "that youngster is from a garage, but if he is, he's the best imitation of the real thing

Donald Whiting stopped at the garage door and looked in, before Linda had finished her grease cups, and in

time to be informed that he might wear commonsense shoes if he chose. At his step, Linda rolled her black

head on the cement floor and raised her eyes. She dropped the grease cup, and her face reddened deeply.

"Oh, my Lord!" she gasped breathlessly. "I forgot to tell Katy when to call me!"

In that instant she also forgot that the stress of the previous four years had accustomed men to seeing women

do any kind of work in any kind of costume; but soon Linda realized that Donald Whiting was not paying any

particular attention either to her or to her occupation. He was leaning forward, gazing at the car with

"Why, sure it's a Bear Cat," she said with the calmness of complete recovery. "And it's just about ready to

Donald Whiting pitched his hat upon the seat, shook off his coat, and sent it flying after the hat. Then he

"Here, let me do that," he said authoritatively. "Gee! I have never yet ridden in a Bear Cat. Take me with you,

"Sure," said Linda, pressing the grease into the cup with a little paddle and holding it up to see if she had it

well filled. "Sure, but there's no use in you getting into this mess, because I have only got two more. You

look over the engine. Did you ever grind valves, and do you think these need it?"

"Why, they don't need it," said Donald, "if they were all right when it was jacked up."

"Well, they were," said Linda. "It was running like a watch when it went to sleep. But do we dare take it out

Donald whistled softly and started a circuit of the car, kicking the tires and feeling them.

"No," said Linda. "I did not want to start the engine until I had finished everything else."

"All right," he said, "I'll look at the valves first and then, if it is all ready, there ought to be a garage near that

"There is," said Linda. "There is one only a few blocks down the street where Dad always had anything done

Linda crawled from under the car and stood up, wiping her hands on a bit of waste.

"They have 'em at the garage," answered Donald, "and if I were you, I wouldn't get a set; I would get two. I

wouldput them on the rear wheels. You might be surprised at how long some of these will last. Anyway,

"Now," she said, "I must be excused a few minutes till I clean up so I am fit to go on the streets. I hope you

"When 'shoes' was the first word I heard," he said, "I did not for a minute think you had forgotten."

"No, I didn't forget," said Linda. "What I did do was to become so excited about cleaning up the car that I let

"Well, forget it!" said Donald. "Run along and jump into something, and let us get our tires and try Kitty out."

Linda reached up and released the brakes. She stepped to one side of the car and laid her hands on it.

"Let us run it down opposite the kitchen door," she said, "then you go around to the front, and I'll let you in,

"Oh, I'll stay out here and look around the yard and go over the car again," said the boy. "What a bunch of

stuff you have got growing here; I don't believe I ever saw half of it before." "It's Daddy's and my collection,"

said Linda. "Some day I'll show you some of the things, and tell you how we got them, and why they are rare.

"Yes," said Linda. "It's about the only thing on earth that is peculiarly and particularly mine. I haven't a doubt

there are improved models, but Daddy had driven this car only about nine months. It was going smooth as

velvet, and there's no reason why it should not keep it up, though I suspect that by this time there are later

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy. "It looks like some little old car to me. I bet it can just skate."

"I know it can," said Linda, "if I haven't neglected something. We'll start carefully, and we'll have the

Then Linda entered the kitchen door to find Katy with everything edible that the house afforded spread before

"I was makin' ready," explained Katy, "to fix ye the same kind of lunch I would for Miss Eileen. Will ye have

"Neither," said Linda. "Come upstairs with me, and in the storeroom you'll find the lunch case and the

and don't stint yourself, Katy. This is a rare occasion. It never happened before. Probably it will never happen

"I'll do my very best with what I happen to have," said Katy; "but I warn you right now I am making a good

"I don't give two whoops," said Linda, "if there isn't any Sunday dinner. In memory of hundreds of times that

we have eaten bread and milk, make it a banquet, Katy, and we'll eat bread and milk tomorrow."

Then she took the stairway at a bound, and ran to her room. Ln a very short time she emerged, clad in a clean

blouse and breeches' her climbing boots, her black hair freshly brushed and braided.

"I ought to have something," said Linda, "to shade my eyes. i The glare's hard on them facing the sun."

Going down the hall she came to the storeroom, opened a drawer' and picked out a fine black felt Alpine hat

that had belonged to her father. She carried it back to her room and, standing at the glass, tried it on, pulling it

down on one side, turning it up at the other, and striking a deep cleft across the crown. She looked at herself

intently for a minute, and then she reached up and deliberately loosened the hair at her temples.

"Not half bad, all things considered, Linda," she said. "But, oh, how you do need a tich of color."

She ran down the hall and opened the door to Eileen's room, and going to her chiffonier, pulled out a drawer

containing an array of gloves, veils, and ribbons. At the bottom of the ribbon stack, her eye caught the gleam

of color for which she was searching, and she deftly slipped out a narrow scarf of Roman stripes with a deep

black fringe at the end. Sitting down, she fitted the hat over her knee, picked up the dressingtable

scissors,and ripped off the band. In its place she fitted the ribbon, pinning it securely and knotting the ends so

that the fringe reached her shoulder. Then she tried the hat again. The result was blissfully satisfactory. The

"Thank you very much, sister mine," she said, "I know you I would be perfectly delighted to loan me this."

Then she went downstairs and walked into the kitchen, prepared for what she would see, by what she heard as

With Katy's apron tied around his waist, Donald Whiting was occupied in squeezing orange, lemon, and

pineapple juice over a cake of ice in a big bowl, preparatory to the compounding of Katy's most delicious

brand of fruit punch. Without a word, Linda stepped to the bread board and began slicing the bread and

building sandwiches, while Katy hurried her preparations for filling the lunch box. A few minutes later Katy

packed them in the car, kissed Linda goodbye, and repeatedly cautioned Donald to make her be careful.

As the car rolled down the driveway and into the street, Donald looked appraisingly at the girl beside him.

"Is it the prevailing custom in Lilac Valley for young ladies to kiss the cook?" inquired Donald laughingly.

"Now, you just hush," said Linda. "Katy is NOT the cook, alone. Katy's my father, and my mother, and my

"Stop right there," interposed Donald. "That is quite enough for any human to be. Katy's a multitude. She

came out to the car with the canteen, and when I offered to help her, without any 'polly foxin',' she just said:

'Sure. Come in and make yourself useful.' So I went, and I am expecting amazing results from the job she

"Come to think of it," said Linda, "I have small experience with anybody's cooking except Katy's and my

Carefully she headed the car into the garage adjoining the salesrooms. There she had an ovation. The

manager and several of the men remembered her. The whole force clustered around the Bear Cat and began

to examine it, and comment on it, and Linda climbed out and asked to have the carburetor adjusted, while the

mechanic put on a pair of tires. When everything was satisfactory, she backed to the street, and after a few

blocks of experimental driving, she headed for the Automobile Club to arrange for her license and then

turned straight toward Multiflores Canyon, but she did not fail to call Donald Whiting's attention to every

beauty of Lilac Valley as they passed through. When they had reached a long level stretch of roadway leading

"It all comes back as natural as breathing," she said. "I couldn't forget it any more than I could forget how to

walk, or to swim. Sit tight. I am going to step on the gas for a bit, just for old sake's sake."

"That's all right," said Donald, taking off his hat and giving his head a toss so that the wind might have full

play through his hair. "But remember our tires are not safe. Better not go the limit until we get rid of these old

Linda settled back in her seat, took a firm grip on the wheel, and started down the broad, smooth highway,

gradually increasing the speed. The color rushed to her cheeks. Her eyes were gleaming.

"Listen to it purr!" she cried to Donald. "If you hear it begin to growl, tell me."

And then for a few minutes they rode like birds on the path of the wind. When they approached the entrance

to the canyon, gradually Linda slowed down. She turned an exultant flashing face to Donald Whiting.

"That was a whizzer," said the boy. "I'll tell you I don't know what I'd give to have a car like this for my very

"And I don't believe I have any business with it," said Linda; "but since circumstances make it mine, I am

"Of course you are," said Donald emphatically. "Don't YoU ever let anybody fool you out of this car, because

if they wanted to, it would be just because they are jealous to think they haven't one that will go as fast."

"There's not the slightest possibility of my giving it up so long as I can make the engine turn over," she said.

"I told you how Father always took me around with him, and there's nothing in this world I am so sure of as I

am sure that I am spoiled for a house cat. I have probably less feminine sophistication than any girl of my age

in the world, and I probably know more about camping and fishing and the scientific why and wherefore of

all outdoors than most of them. I just naturally had such a heavenly time with Daddy that it never has hurt my

feelings to be left out of any dance or party that ever was given. The one thing that has hurt is the isolation.

Since I lost Daddy I haven't anyone but Katy. Sometimes, when I see a couple of nice, interesting girls

visiting with their heads together, a great feeling of envy wells up in my soul, and I wish with all my heart

"Ever try to make one?" asked Donald. "There are mighty fine girls in the high school."

"I have seen several that I thought I would like to be friends with," said Linda, "but I am so lacking in

feminine graces that I haven't known how to make advances, in the first place, and I haven't had the courage,

"She will be twentythree next birthday," said Donald; "and of all the nice girls you ever saw, she is the

"Yes," she assented, "I am sure I have heard your sister mentioned. But didn't you tell me she had been reared

"No, I did not," said Donald emphatically. "I told you Mother j believed in dressing her as the majority of

other girls were dressed, but I didn't say she had been reared for society. She has been reared with an eye

"I call that fine," said Linda. "Makes me envious of you. Now forget everything except your eyes and tell me

"I have been through a few times before, but seems to me I | never saw it looking quite so pretty."

Linda drove carefully, but presently Donald uttered an exclamation as she swerved from the road and started

down what appeared to be quite a steep embankment and headed straight for the stream.

"Sit tight," she said tersely. "The Bear Cat just loves its cave. It knows where it is going."

She broke through a group of young willows and ran the car ! into a tiny plateau, walled in a circle by the

sheer sides of the ! canyon reaching upward almost out of sight, topped with great jagged overhanging

boulders. Crowded to one side, she stopped the car and sat quietly, smiling at Donald Whiting.

The boy looked around him, carefully examining the canyon walls, and then at the level, odorous floor where

one could not step without crushing tiny flowers of white, cerise, blue, and yellow. Big ferns grew along the

walls, here and there "Our Lord's Candles" lifted high torches not yet lighted, the ambitious

mountain stream skipped and circled and fell over its rocky bed, while many canyon wrens were singing.

"Do you think," she said, "that anyone driving along here at an ordinary rate of speed would see that car?"

"All right, then," said Linda. "Toe up even and I'll race YoU to the third curve where you see the big white

Donald had a fleeting impression of a flash of khaki, a gleam of red, and a wave of black as they started. He

ran with all the speed he had ever attained at a track meet. He ran with all his might. He ran until his sides

strained and his breath came short; but the creature beside him was not running; she was flying; and long

before they neared the sycamore he knew he was beaten, so he laughingly cried to her to stop it. Linda turned

"I make that dash every time I come to the canyon, to keep my muscle up, but this is the first time I have had

Then together they slowly walked down the smooth black floor between the canyon walls. As they crossed a

"Every one of us," answered Donald. "We're all batty about cress saladand, say, that reminds me of

something! If you know so much about this canyon and everything in it, is there any place in it where a

fellow could find a plant, a kind of salad lettuce, that the Indians used to use?"

"Haven't you heard of the big sensation that is being made in feminine circles by the new department in

Everybody's Home?" inquired Donald. "Mother and Mary Louise were discussing it the other day at lunch,

and they said that some of the recipes for dishes to be made from stuff the Indians used sounded delicious.

One reminded them of cress, and when we saw the cress I wondered if I could get them some of the other."

"Might," said Linda drily, "if you could give me a pretty good idea of what it is that you want."

"When you know cress, it's queer that you wouldn't know other things in your own particular canyon," said

"I suspect it's miners' lettuce you want," she said. "Of course I know where there's some, but you will want it

as fresh as possible if you take any, so we'll finish our day first and gather it the last thing before we leave."

How it started neither of them noticed, but they had not gone far before they were climbing the walls and

hanging to precarious footings. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brilliant, her lips laughing, Linda was showing

Donald thrifty specimens of that Cotyledon known as "old hen and chickens," telling him of the rare

Echeveria of the same family, and her plunge down the canyon side while trying to uproot it, exulting that she

Linda told about her fall, and the two men who had passed at that instant, and how she had met them later,

and who they were, and what they were doing. Then Donald climbed high for a bunch of larkspur, and Linda

showed him how to turn his back to the canyon wall and come down with the least possible damage to his

person and clothing. When at last both of them were tired they went back to the car. Linda spread an old

Indian blanket over the least flowergrown spot she could select, brought out the thermos bottles and lunch

case, and served their lunch. With a glass of fruit punch in one hand and a lettuce sandwich in the other,

"Katy is more than a cook," said Linda quietly. "She is a human being. She has the biggest, kindest heart.

When anybody's sick or in trouble she's the greatest help. She is honest; she has principles; she is intelligent.

In her spare time she reads good books and magazines. She knows what is going on in the world. She can talk

intelligently on almost any subject. It's no disgrace to be a cook. If it were, Katy would be unspeakable. Fact

is, at the present minute there's no one in all the world so dear to me as Katy. I always talk Irish with her."

"Maybe it is," conceded Linda. "I suspect a lady wouldn't have i said that, but Eileen and I are so different.

She never has made the slightest effort to prove herself lovable to me, and so I have never learned to love her.

"The very beautiful young lady who opened the door mistook me for a mechanic. She told me I would find

you working on your car and for goodness' sake to see that it was in proper condition before you drove it."

Linda looked at him with wide, surprised eyes in which a trace of indignation was plainly discernible.

"Now listen to me," she said deliberately. "Eileen is a most sophisticated young lady. If she saw you, she

never in this world, thought you were a mechanic sent from a garage presenting yourself at our front door."

"There might have been a spark of malice in the big bluegray I eyes that carefully appraised me," said

"Your choice of words is good," said Linda, refilling the punch glass. "'Appraise' fits Eileen like her glove.

She appraises every thing on a monetary basis, and when she can't figure that it's going to be worth an

appreciable number of dollars and cents to her'to the garage wid it,' as Katy would say."

When they had finished their lunch Linda began packing the box and Donald sat watching her.

"I did smoke an occasional cigarette," he said lightly, "up to the day, not a thousand years ago, when a very

emphatic young lady who should have known, insinuated that it was bad for the nerves, and going on the

presumption that she knew, I haven't smoked a cigarette since and I'm not going to until I find out whether I

Linda folded napkins and packed away accessories thoughtfully. Then she looked into the boy's eyes.

"Now we reach the point of our being here together," she said. "It's time to fight, and I am sorry we didn't go

�' the minute we met. You're so different from what I thought you were. If anyone had told me a week ago

that you would take off your coat and mess with my automobile engine, or wear Katy's apron and squeeze

I have such a good time as I have had this afternoon, and then end with a fight."

| good a time as I have had. You're like another boy. A fellow can be just a fellow with you, and somehow

you make everything you touch mean something it never meant before. You have made me feel that I would

be about twice the man I am if I had spent the time I have wasted in plain jazzing around, hunting Cotyledon

"I get you," said Linda. "It's the difference between a girl reared in an atmosphere of georgette and rouge, and

one who has grown up in the canyons with the oaks and sycamores. One is natural and the other is artificial.

"I thought I did myself," said Donald, "but today has taught me that I don't. I think, Linda, that you would

make the finest friend a fellow ever had. I firmly and finally decline to fight with you; but for God's sake,

Linda slammed down the lid to the lunch box. Her voice was smooth and even but there was battle in her

eyes and she answered decisively: "Well, you can't beat him calling him names. There is only one way on

God's footstool that you can beat him. You can't beat him legislating against him. You can't beat him

boycotting him. You can't beat him with any tricks. He is as sly as a cat and he has got a whole bag full of

tricks of his own, and he has proved right here in Los Angeles that he has got a brain that is hard to beat. All

you can do, and be a man commendable to your own soul, is to take his subject and put your brain on it to

such purpose that you cut pigeon wings around him. What are you studying in your classes, anyway?"

"Strangely enough it is," answered Donald. "We have been in the same classes all through high school. I

"'Man,'" conceded Donald. "Has waited until I selected my course all the way through, and then he has

announced what he would take. He probably figured that I had somebody with brains back of the course I

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Linda. "They are quick; oh! they are quick; and they know from their cradles

what it is that they have in the backs of their heads. We are not going to beat them driving them to Mexico or

to Canada, or letting them monopolize China. That is merely temporizing. That is giving them fertile soil on

which to take the best of their own and the level best of ours, and by amalgamating the two, build higher than

we ever have. There is just one way in all this world that we can beat Eastern civilization and all that it

intends to do to us eventually. The white man has dominated by his color so far in the history of the world,

but it is written in the Books that when the men of color acquire our culture and combine it with their own

methods of living and rate of production, they are going to bring forth greater numbers, better equipped for

the battle of life, than we are. When they have got our last secret, constructive or scientific, they will take it,

and living in a way that we would not, reproducing in numbers we don't, they will beat us at any game we

start, if we don't take warning while we are in the ascendancy, and keep there."

"Well, there is something to think about," said Donald Whiting, staring past Linda at the side of the canyon as

if he had seen the same handwriting on the wall that dismayed Belshazzar at the feast that preceded his

"I see what you're getting at," he said. "I had thought that there might be some way to circumvent him."

"There is!" broke in Linda hastily. "There is. You can beat him, but you have got to beat him in an honorable

"I'll do anything in the world if you will only tell me how," said Donald. "Maybe you think it isn't grinding

me and humiliating me properly. Maybe you think Father and Mother haven't warned me. Maybe you think

Linda's eyes were narrowed to a mere line. She was staring at the wall back of Donald as if she hoped that

Heaven would intercede in her favor and write thereon a line that she might translate to the boy's benefit.

"I have been watching pretty sharply," she said. "Take them as a race, as a unitof course there are

exceptions, there always are but the great body of them are mechanical. They are imitative. They are not

developing anything great of their own in their own country. They are spreading all over the world and

carrying home sewing machines and threshing machines and automobiles and cantilever bridges and

submarines and aeroplanesanything from eggbeaters to telescopes. They are not creating one single thing.

They are not missing imitating everything that the white man can do anywhere else on earth. They are just

"I get that, all right enough," said Donald. "Now go on. What is your deduction? How the devil am I to beat

The red in Linda's cheeks deepened. Her eyes opened their widest. She leaned forward, and with her closed

"Then, by gracious," she said sternly, "you have got to do something new. You have got to be perfect,

"Yes, sir!" said Linda emphatically. "You have got to be perfect, plus. If he can take his little mechanical

brain and work a thing out till he has got it absolutely right, you have got to go further than that and discover

something pertaining to it not hitherto thought of and start something NEW. I tell you you must use your

"No," said Linda quietly, "you are not. You are merely His son, created in His own image, like Him,

according to the Book, and you have got to your advantage the benefit of all that has been learned down the

ages. We have got to take up each subject in your course, and to find some different books treating this same

subject. We have got to get at it from a new angle. We must dig into higher authorities. We have got to coach

you till, when you reach the highest note possible for the parrot, you can go ahead and embellish it with a few

mockingbird flourishes. All Oka Sayye knows how to do is to learn the lesson in his book perfectly, and he

is 100 per cent. I have told you what you must do to add the plus, and you can do it if you are the boy I take

you for. People have talked about the 'yellow peril' till it's got to be a meaningless phrase. Somebody must

wake up to the realization that it's the deadliest peril that ever has menaced white civilization. Why shouldn't

"Linda," said the boy breathlessly, "do you realize that you have been saying 'we'? Can you help me? Will

"No," said Linda, "I didn't realize that I had said 'we.' I didn't mean two people, just you and me. I meant all

the white boys and girls of the high school and the city and the state and the whole world. If we are going to

combat the 'yellow peril' we must combine against it. We have got to curb our appetites and train our brains

and enlarge our hearts till we are something bigger and finer and numerically greater than this yellow peril.

We can't take it and pick it up and push it into the sea. We are not Germans and we are not Turks. I never

wanted anything in all this world worse than I want to see you graduate ahead of Oka Sayye. And then I want

to see the white boys and girls of Canada and of England and of Norway and Sweden and Australia, and of

the whole world doing exactly what I am recommending that you do in your class and what I am doing

personally in my own. I have had Japs in my classes ever since I have been in school, but Father always told

me to study them, to play the game fairly, but to BEAT them in some way, in some fair way, to beat them at

"Well, there is one thing you don't take into consideration," said Donald. "All of us did not happen to be

"Oh, posher!" said Linda. "I know of a case where a little Indian was picked up from a tribal battlefield in

South America and brought to this country and put into our schools, and there was nothing that any white

pupil in the school could do that he couldn't, so long as it was imitative work. You have got to be

constructive. You have got to work out some way to get ahead of them; and if you will take the history of the

white races and go over their great achievements in mechanics, science, art, literatureanything you

choosewhen a white man is constructive, when he does create, he can simply cut circles around the colored

races. The thing is to get the boys and girls of today to understand what is going on in the world, what they

must do as their share in making the world safe for their grandchildren. Life is a struggle. It always has been.

It always will be. There is no better study than to go into the canyons or the deserts and efface yourself and

watch life. It's an allday process of the stronger annihilating the weaker. The one inexorable thing in the

world is Nature. The eagle dominates the hawk; the hawk, the falcon; the falcon, the raven; and so on down

to the place where the hummingbird drives the moth from his particular trumpet flower. The big snake

"No," said Linda, "it is not. That is wild. We go a step ahead of the wild, or we ourselves become wild. We

have brains, and with our brains we must do in a scientific way what Nature does with tooth and claw. In

other words, and to be concrete, put these things in the car while I fold the blanket. We'll gather our miners'

lettuce and then we'll go home and search Daddy's library and see if there is anything bearing in a higher way

on any subject you are taking, so that you can get from it some new ideas, some different angle, some higher

light, something that will end in speedily prefacing Oka Sayye's perfect with your pluperfect!"

Linda delivered Donald Whiting at his door with an armload of books and a bundle of miners' lettuce and

then drove to her home in Lilac Valleyin the eye of the beholder on the floorlevel macadam road; in her

own eye she scarcely grazed it. The smooth, easy motion of the car, the softly purring engine were thrilling.

The speed at which she was going was like having wings on her body. The mental stimulus she had

experienced in concentrating her brain on Donald Whiting's problem had stimulated her imagination. The

radiant color of spring; the chilled, perfumed, golden air; the sure sense of having found a friend, had ruffled

the plumes of her spirit. On the home road Donald had plainly indicated that he would enjoy spending the

morrow with her, and she had advised him to take the books she had provided and lock himself in his room

and sweat out some information about Monday's lessons which would at least arrest his professor's attention,

and lead his mind to the fact that something was beginning to happen. And then she had laughingly added:

"Tomorrow is Katy's turn. I told the old dear I would take her as soon as I felt the car was safe. Every day she

does many things that she hopes will give me pleasure. This is one thing I can do that I know will delight

"Sure thing. I'll be thinking up some place extra interesting. Come in the morning if you want, and we'll take

a lunch and go for the day. Which do you like best, mountains or canyons or desert or sea?"

"I like it best wherever what you're interested in takes you," said Donald simply.

When she reached home she found Katy tearfully rejoicing, plainly revealing how intensely anxious she had

been. But when Linda told her that the old tires had held, that the car ran wonderfully, that everything was

perfectly safe, that she drove as unconsciously as she breathed, and that tomorrow Katy was to go for a long

Linda laughed. She patted Katy and started down the hallway, when she called back: "What is this package?"

"A delivery boy left it special only a few minutes ago. Must be something Miss Eileen bought and thought

she would want tomorrow, and then afterward she got this invitation and went on as she was."

"Katy," she said, "I have just about got an irresistible impulse to peep. I was telling Eileen last night of a

dress I saw that I thought perfect. It suited me better than any other dress I ever did see. It was at 'The Mode.'

This box is from 'The Mode.' Could there be a possibility that she sent it up specially for me?"

"One peep would show me whether it is my dress or not," said Linda, "and peep I'm going to."

wear her waists if I wanted to, and she always alters her skirts herself to save the fees. Glory be! This is my

dress, and there's a petticoat and stockings to match it. Why, the nice old thing! I suggested hard enough, but

in my heart I hardly thought she would do it. Oh, dear, now if I only had some shoes, and a hat."

Linda was standing holding the jacket in one hand, the stockings in the other, her face flaming. Katy drew

herself to full height. She reached over and picked the things from Linda's fingers.

"If ye know that is your dress, lambie," she said authoritatively, "ye go right out and get into that car and run

"Well, I have," said Katy, "and this time ye're going to stop your stubbornness and take enough to get ye what

you need. Ye go to the best store in Los Angeles and come back here with a pair of shoes that just match

those stockings, and ye go fast, before the stores close. If ye've got to speed a little, do it in the country and

"Katy, you're arriving!" cried Linda. "'Judicious speeding' is one thing I learned better than any other lesson

about driving a motor car. Three fourths of the driving Father and I did we were speeding judiciously."

"Well, maybe it's a little shorter than any you have been wearing, but it ain't as short as Eileen and all the rest

of the girls your age have them, so that's all right, honey. Slip on your coat."

"Oh, Lord," she groaned, "ye can't be wearing that! The sleeves don't come much below your elbows."

"You will please to observe," said Linda, "that they are flowing sleeves and they are not intended to come

below the elbows; but it's a piece of luck I tried it on, for it reminds me that it's a jacket suit and I must have a

blouse. When you get the shoe money, make it enough for a blousetwo blouses, Katy, one for school and

Without stopping to change her clothing, Linda ran to the garage and hurried back to the city. It was less than

an hour's run, but she made it in ample time to park her car and buy the shoes. She selected a pair of low

oxfords of beautiful color, matching the stockings. Then she hurried to one of the big drygoods stores and

bought the two waists and an inexpensive straw hat that would harmonize with the suit; a hat small enough to

stick, in the wind, with brim enough to shade her eyes. In about two hours she was back with Katy and they

She had put on the shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse of a soft, brownish woodgray, with a bit of

heavy brown silk embroidery decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was of silky changeable

tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold lifted and was strongly lighted, it was an exquisite silvergray; where

a shadow fell deeply it was graybrown. The coat reached half way to the knees. It had a rippling skirt with a

row of brown embroidery around it, a deep belt with double buttoning at the waistline, and collar and sleeves

in a more elaborate pattern of the same embroidery as the skirt. Linda perched the hat on her head, pulled it

"And it's a perfect dress!" said Katy proudly, "and you're just the colleen to wear it. My, but I wisht your

With almost reverent hands Linda removed the clothing and laid it away. Then she read a letter from Marian

that was waiting for her, telling Katy scraps of it in running comment as she scanned the sheets.

"She likes her boarding place. There are nice people in it. She has got a wonderful view from the windows of

her room. She is making friends. She thinks one of the men at Nicholson and Snow's is just fine; he is helping

her all he can, on the course she is taking. And she wants us to look carefully everywhere for any scrap of

paper along the hedge or around the shrubbery on the north side of the house. One of her three sheets of plans

"There was not a scrap of a sheet of paper in the room when I cleaned it," she said, "not a scrap. And if I had

seen a sheet flying around the yard I would have picked it up. She just must be mistaken about having lost it

"I put that stuff in the case myself," she said, "and the clothes on top of it, and she wouldn't have any reason

for taking those things out on the train. I can't understand, but she did have three rough sketches. She had her

heart set on winning that prize and it would be a great help to her, and certainly it was the most

comprehensive and convenient plan for a house of that class that I ever have seen. If I ever have a house, she

is going to plan it, even if she doesn't get to plan John Gilman's as he always used to say that she should. And

by the way, Katy, isn't it kind of funny for Eileen to go away over Sunday when it's his only holiday?"

"Oh, she'll telephone him," said Katy, "and very like, he'll go down, or maybe he is with her. Ye needn't

waste any sympathy on him. Eileen will take care that she has him so long as she thinks she wants him."

Later it developed that Eileen had secured the invitation because she was able to produce three most eligible

Anderson were there as well. It was in the nature of a hastily arranged celebration, because the deal for three

acres of land that Peter Morrison most coveted on the small plateau, mountain walled, in Lilac Valley, was in

escrow. He had made a payment on it. Anderson was working on his plans. Contractors had been engaged,

built as soon as possible, and Peter Morrison had arranged that the garage was to be built first. This he meant

to occupy as a residence so that he could be on hand to superintend the construction of the new home and to

protect, as far as possible, the natural beauty and the natural growth of the location.

Early Sunday morning Linda and Katy, with a full lunch box and a full gasoline tank, slid from the driveway

"We'll switch over and strike San Fernando Road," said Linda, "and I'll scout around Sunland a bit and see if

That day was wonderful for Katy. She trotted after Linda over sandy desert reaches, along the seashore, up

mountain trails, and through canyons connected by long stretches of motoring that was more like flying than

riding. She was tired but happy when she went to bed. Monday morning she was an interested spectator as

"Sure, and hasn't the old chrysalis opened up and let out the nicest little ladybird moth, Katy?' inquired

Linda as she smoothed her graygold skirts. "I think myself that this dress is a trifle too good for school.

When I get my allowance next week I think I'll buy me a cloth skirt and a couple of wash waists and save this

for better; but it really was good of Eileen to take so much pains and send it to me, when she was busy

Katy watched Linda go, and she noted the new light in her eyes, the new lift of her head, and the proud

sureness of her step, and she wondered if a new dress could do all that for a girl, she scarcely believed that it

could. And, too, she had very serious doubts about the dress. She kept thinking of it during the day, and when

Eileen came, in the middle of the afternoon, at the first words on her lips: "Has my dress come?" Katy felt a

wave of illness surge through her. She looked at Eileen so helplessly that that astute reader of human nature

"I sent it special," she said, "because I didn't know at the time that I was going to Riverside and I wanted to

"Was the dress ye ordered sent the one Miss Linda was telling ye about?" she asked tersely.

"Yes, it was," said Eileen. "Linda has got mighty good taste. Any dress she admired was sure to be right. She

said there was a beautiful dress at 'The Mode'. I went and looked, and sure enough there was, a perfect

"Well, it strikes me," said Katy, "that it was just the spittin' image of fifty dresses I've seen ye wear to school.

"I know just this," said Katy with determination. "Ye've had one new dress in the last few days and you're not

needin' another. The blessed Virgin only knows when Miss Linda's had a dress. She thought ye'd done

yourself proud and sent it for her, and she put it on, and a becoming and a proper thing it was too! I advanced

her the money myself and sent her to get some shoes to match it since she had her car fixed and could go in a

Eileen was speechless with anger. Her face was a sickly white and the rouge spots on her cheeks stood a

"Not again," said the daughter of Erin firmly, "because I have already told ye wance. Linda's gone like a rag

bag since the Lord knows when. She had a right to the dress, and she thought it was hers, and she took it. And

if ye ever want any more respect or obedience or love from the kiddie, ye better never let her know that ye

didn't intend it for her, for nothing was ever quite so fair and right as that she should have it; and while you're

about it you'd better go straight to the store and get her what she is needin' to go with it, or better still, ye had

better give her a fair share of the money of which there used to be such a plenty, and let her get her things

herself, for she's that tasty nobody can beat her when she's got anything to do with."

"Katherine O'Donovan," she said shrilly, "pack your trunk and see how quick you can get out of this house. I

Katy folded her red arms and lifted her red chin, and a steelblue light flashed from her steelgray eyes.

"Humph!" she said, "I'll do nothing of the sort. I ain't working for ye and I never have been no more than I

ever worked for your mother. Every lick I ever done in this house I done for Linda and Doctor Strong and for

nobody else. Half of this house and everything in it belongs to Linda, and it's a mortal short time till she's of

age to claim it. Whichever is her half, that half I'll be staying in, and if ye manage so as she's got nothing to

pay me, I'll take care of her without pay till the day comes when she can take care of me. Go to wid ye, ye

triflin', lazy, selfpossessed creature. Ten years I have itched to tell ye what I thought of ye, and now ye

As Katy's rage increased, Eileen became intimidated. Like every extremely selfish person she was a coward

"If you refuse to go on my orders," she said, "I'll have John Gilman issue his."

Then Katy set her left hand on her left hip, her lower jaw shot past the upper, her doubled right fist shook

"I'm darin' ye," she shouted. "I'm just darin' ye to send John Gilman in the sound of my voice. If ye do, I'll tell

him every mean and selfish thing ye've done to me poor lambie since the day of the Black Shadow. Send him

to me? Holy Mither, I wish ye would! If ever I get my chance at him, don't ye think I won't be tellin' him

what he has lost, and what he has got? And as for taking orders from him, I am taking my orders from the

person I am working for, and as I told ye before, that's Miss Linda. Be off wid ye, and primp up while I get

my supper, and mind ye this,, if ye tell Miss Linda ye didn't mean that gown for her and spoil the happy day

she has had, I won't wait for ye to send John Gilman to me; I'll march straight to him. Put that in your

Then Katy started a triumphal march to the kitchen and cooled down by the wellknown process of

slamming pots and pans for half an hour. Soon her Irish sense of humor came to her rescue.

"Now, don't I hear myself telling Miss Linda a few days ago to kape her temper, and to kape cool, and to go

aisy. Look at the aise of me when I got started. By gracious, wasn't I just itching to wallop her?"

Then every art that Katy possessed was bent to the consummation of preparing a particularly delicious dinner

Linda came in softly humming something to herself about the kind of shoes that you might wear if you chose.

She had entered the high school that morning with an unusually brilliant color. Two or three girls, who never

had noticed her before, had nodded to her that morning, and one or two had said: "What a pretty dress you

have!" She had caught the flash of approval in the eyes of Donald Whiting, and she had noted the flourish

with which he raised his hat when he saw her at a distance, and she knew what he meant when he held up a

book, past the covers of which she could see protruding a thick fold of white paper. He had foresworn

whatever pleasure he might have thought of for Sunday. He had prepared notes on some subject that he

thought would further him. The lift of his head, the flourish of his hat, and the book all told Linda that he had

struggled and that he felt the struggle had brought an exhilarating degree of success. That had made the day

particularly bright for Linda. She had gone home with a feeling of uplift and exultation in her heart. As she

"Thank you over and over, old thing!" she cried as she raced down the hallway. "Behold me! I never did have

a more becoming dress, and Katy loaned me money, till my income begins, to get shoes and a little scuff hat

She pirouetted in the doorway. Eileen gripped the brush she was wielding, tight.

"You have good taste," she said. "It's a pretty dress, but You're always howling about things being suitable.

"It certainly is an innovation for me," said Linda, "but there are dozens of dresses of the same material, only

different cut and colors in the high school today. As soon as I get my money I'll buy a skirt and some blouses

so I won't have to wear this all the time; but I surely do thank you very much, and I surely have had a lovely

Eileen slammed down the brush and turned almost a distorted face to Linda. She had temper to vent. In the

hour's reflection previous to Linda's coming, she realized that she had reached the limit with Katy. If she

antagonized her by word or look, she would go to John Gilman, and Eileen dared not risk what she would

"No, I did not have a lovely time," she said. "I furnished the men for the party and I expected to have a grand

time, but the first thing we did was to run into that inflated egotist calling herself Mary Louise Whiting, and

like a fool, Janie Brunson introduced her to Peter Morrison. I had paired him with Janie on purpose to keep

Linda tried hard but she could not suppress a chuckle: "Of course you would!" she murmured softly.

Eileen turned her back. That had been her first confidence to Linda. She was so aggrieved at that moment that

she could have told unanswering walls her tribulations. It would have been better if she had done so. She

might have been able to construe silence as sympathy. Linda's laughter she knew exactly how to interpret.

"I hadn't the least notion you would take an interest in anything concerning me," she said. "People can talk all

they please about Mary Louise Whiting being a perfect lady but she is a perfect beast. I have met her

repeatedly and she has always ignored me, and yesterday she singled out for her special attention the most

"'Most desirable,'" breathed Linda. "Poor John! I see his second fiasco. Lavender crystals, please!"

Eileen caught her lip in mortification. She had not intended to say what she thought.

"Well, you can't claim," she hurried on to cover her confusion, "that it was not an illbred, common trick for

her to take possession of a man of my party, and utterly ignore me. She has everything on earth that I want;

she treats me like a dog, and she could give me a glorious time by merely nodding her head."

"I am quite sure you are mistaken," said Linda. "From what I've heard of her, she wouldn't mistreat anyone.

Very probably what she does is merely to feel that she is not acquainted with you. You have an unfortunate

way, Eileen, of defeating your own ends. If you wanted to attract Mary Louise Whiting, you missed the best

chance you ever could have had, at three o'clock Saturday afternoon, when you maliciously treated her only

brother as you would a mechanic, ordered him to our garage, and shut our door in his face."

Eileen turned to Linda. Her mouth fell open. A ghastly greenish white flooded her face.

"I mean," said Linda, "that Donald Whiting was calling on me, and you purposely sent him to the garage."

Crash down among the vanities of Eileen's dressing table went her lovely head, and she broke into deep and

violent sobs. Linda stood looking at her a second, slowly shaking her head. Then she turned and went to her

Later in the evening she remembered the Roman scarf and told Eileen of what she had done, and she was

unprepared for Eileen's reply: "That scarf always was too brilliant for me. You're welcome to it if you want

Linda went to the library to see to what state of emptiness it had been reduced by the removal of several

pieces of furniture she had ordered taken away that day. As she stood on the threshold looking over the room

as usual, a throb of loving appreciation of Katy swept through her heart. Katy had been there before her. The

room had been freshly swept and dusted, the rugs had been relaid, the furniture rearranged skilfully, and the

table stood at the best angle to be lighted either by day or night. On the table and the mantel stood big bowls

of lovely fresh flowers. Linda was quite certain that anyone entering the room for the first time would have

felt it completely furnished, and she doubted if even Marian would notice the missing pieces. Cheered in her

heart, she ran up to the billiard room, and there again Katy had preceded her. The windows were shining. The

walls and floor had been cleaned. Everything was in readiness for the new furniture. Her heart full of

gratitude, Linda went to her room, prepared her lessons for the next day, and then drew out her writing

I have an acute attack of enlargement of the heart. So many things have happened since your leaving. But

first I must tell you about your sketch. We just know you did not leave it here. Katy says there was not a

scrap in our bedroom when she cleaned it; and as she knows you make plans and how precious they are to

you, I guarantee she would have saved it if she had found anything looking like a parallelogram on a piece of

paper. And I have very nearly combed the lawn, not only the north side, but the west, south, and east; and

then I broke the laws and went over to your house and crawled through a basement window and worked my

way up, and I have hunted every room in it, but there is nothing there. You must have lost that sketch after

you reached San Francisco. I hope to all that's peaceful you did not lay it down in the offices of Nicholson

and Snow, or where you take your lessons. I know nothing about architecture, but I do know something about

comfort in a home, and I thought that was the most comfortable and convenientlooking house I ever had

Now I'll go on and tell you all the news, and I don't know which is the bigger piece to burst on you first.

Would you be more interested in knowing that Peter Morrison has bought three acres on the other side of the

valley from us and up quite a way, or in the astonishing fact that I have a new dress, a perfect love of a dress,

really too good for school? You know there was blood in my eye when you left, and I didn't wait long to start

action. I have managed to put the fear of God into Eileen's heart so that she has agreed to a reasonable

allowance for me from the first of next month; but she must have felt at least one small wave of contrition

when I told her about a peculiarly enticing dress I had seen at The Mode. She sent it up right away, and Katy,

blessed be her loving footprints, loaned me money to buy a blouse and some shoes to match, so I went to

school today looking very like the Great General Average, minus rouge, lipstick, hairdress, and French heels.

Then Linda recounted the emptying of the billiard room, the inroads in the library, the listing of the technical

books, and what she proposed to do with the money. And then, her face slightly pale and her fingers slightly

And, Marian dear, I hope you won't be angry with me when I tell you that I have put the Bear Cat into

commission and driven it three times already. It is running like the feline it is, and I am being as careful as I

can. I know exactly how you will feel. It is the same feeling that has held me all these months, when I

wouldn't even let myself think of it. But something happened at school one day, Marian. You know the

Whitings? Mary Louise Whiting's brother is in the senior class. He is a sixfooter, and while he is not

handsome he is going to be a real man when he is fully developed, and steadied down to work. One day last

week he made it his business to stop me in the hall and twit me about my shoes, and incidentally to ask me

why I didn't dress like the other girls; and some way it came rougher than if it had been one of the girls. The

more I thought about it the more wronged I felt, so I ended in a young revolution that is to bring me an

income, a suitable place to work in and has brought me such a pretty dress. I think it has brought Eileen to a

sense of at least partial justice about money, and it brought me back the Bear Cat. You know the proudest

moment of my life was when Father would let me drive the little beast, and it all came back as natural as

It won't be necessary to tell you that Katy is her darling old self, loyal and steadfast as the sun, and quite as

necessary and as comforting to me. And I have a couple of other interests in life that are going toI won't

say make up for your absence, because nothing could do thatbut they are going to give me something

interesting to think about, something agreeable to work at, while you are gone. But, oh, Marian, do hurry.

Work all day and part of the night. Be Saturday's child yourself if you must, just so you get home quick, and

where your white head makes a beacon light for the truest, lovingest pal you will ever have,

Linda laid down the pen, slid down in her chair, and looked from the window across the valley, and she

wondered if in her view lay the location that had been purchased by Peter Morrison. She glanced back at her

"Much good that will do her," she commented. "When a woman loves a man and loves him with all her heart,

as Marian loved John, and when she loses him, not because she has done a single unworthy thing herself, but

because he is so rubber spined that he will let another woman successfully intrigue him, a lot of comfort she

Linda's eyes strayed to the window again, and traveled down to the city and up the coast, all the way to San

Francisco, and out of the thousands of homes there they pictured a small, neat room, full of Marian's

belongings, and Marian herself bending over a worktable, absorbed in the final draft of her precious plans.

Linda could see Marian as plainly as she ever had seen her, but she let her imagination run, and she fancied

that when Marian was among strangers and where no one knew of John Gilman's defection, that hers might

be a very heavy heart, that hers might be a very sad face. Then she went to planning. She had been desolate,

heart hungry, and isolated herself. First she had endured, then she had fought; the dawn of a new life was

breaking over her hill. She had found work she was eager to do. She could put the best of her brain, the skill

She was almost sure that she had found a friend. She had a feeling that when the coming Saturday had been

lived Donald Whiting would be her friend. He would want her advice and her help in his work. She would

want his companionship and the stimulus of his mind, in hers. What Linda had craved was a dear friend

among the girls, but no girl had offered her friendship. This boy had, so she would accept what the gods of

time and circumstance provided. It was a very wonderful thing that had happened to her. Now why could not

something equally wonderful happen to Marian? Linda wrinkled her brows and thought deeply.

"It's the worst thing in all this world to work and work with nobody to know about it and nobody to care,"

thought Linda. "Marian could break a record if she thought John Gilman cared now as he used to. It's almost

a necessary element to her success. If he doesn't care, she ought to be made to feel that somebody cares. This

thing of standing alone, since I have found a friend, appeals to me as almost insupportable. Let me think."

It was not long until she had worked out a scheme for putting an interest in Marian's life and giving her

something for which to work, until a more vital reality supplanted it. The result was that she took some paper,

went down to the library, and opening the typewriter, wrote a letter. She read it over, making many changes

and corrections, and then she copied it carefully. When she came to addressing it she was uncertain, but at

last she hit upon a scheme of sending it in the care of Nicholson and Snow because Marian had told her that

she meant to enter their contest immediately she reached San Francisco, and she would have left them her

address. On the last reading of the letter she had written, she decided that it was a manly, straightforward

production, which should interest and attract any girl. But how was she to sign it? After thinking deeply for a

long time, she wrote "Philip Sanders, General Delivery," and below she added a postscript:

To save you the trouble of inquiring among your friends as to who Philip Sanders is, I might as well tell you

in the beginning that he isn't. He is merely an assumption under which I shall hide my personality until you

let me know whether it is possible that you could become even slightly interested in me, as a small return for

"Abiding," said Linda aloud. "It seems to me that there is nothing in all the world quite so fine as a word. Isn't

'abiding' a good word? Doesn't it mean a lot? Where could you find one other word that means being with

you and also means comforting you and loving you and sympathizing with you and surrounding you with

firm walls and a cushioned floor and a starry roof? I love that word. I hope it impresses Marian with all its

She went back to her room, put both letters into her Geometry, and in the morning mailed them. She stood a

long time hesitating with the typewritten letter in her hand, but finally dropped it in the letter box also.

"It will just be something," she said, "to make her think that some man appreciates her lovely face and doesn't

And then she slowly repeated, " 'steadfast,' that is another fine word. It has pearls and rubies all over it."

After school that evening she visited James Brothers' and was paid the full amount of the appraisement of her

furniture. Then she went to an art store and laid in a full supply of the materials she needed for the work she

was trying to do. Her fingers were trembling as she handled the boxes of water colors and selected the

brushes and pencils for her work, and sheets of drawing paper upon which she could do herself justice. When

the transaction was finished, she had a few dollars remaining. As she put them in her pocket she said softly:

"That's gasoline. Poor Katy! I'm glad she doesn't need her money, because she is going to have to wait for the

allowance or the sale of the books or on Jane Meredith. But it's only a few days now, so that'll be all right."

Linda entered the street car for her daily ride to Lilac Valley. She noticed Peter Morrison and Henry

Anderson sitting beside each other, deeply engrossed in a drawing. She had been accustomed to ride in the

open section of the car as she liked the fresh air. She had a fleeting thought of entering the body of the car

and sitting where they would see her; and then a perverse spirit in Linda's heart said to her:

Whereupon Linda dropped into the first vacant seat she could reach, but it was only a few moments before

Peter Morrison, looking up from the plans he was studying, saw her, and lifting his hat, beckoned her to come

and sit with him. They made room for her between them and spreading the paper across her lap, all three of

them began to discuss the plans for the foundation for Peter's house. Anderson had roughly outlined the

grounds, sketching in the trees that were to be saved, the spring, and the most available route for reaching the

road. The discussion was as to where the road should logically enter the grounds, and where the garage

"Which reminds me," said Linda"haven't you your car with you? Or was that a hired one you were touring

"Mine," said Peter Morrison, "but we toured so far, it's in the shop for a general overhauling today."

"That being the case," said Linda, "walk home with me and I'll take you to your place in mine and bring you

"Why, that would be fine," said Peter. "You didn't mention, the other evening, that you had a car."

"No," said Linda, "I had been trying to keep cars out of my thought for a long time, but I could endure it no

longer the other day, so I got mine out and tuned it up. If you don't mind stacking up a bit, three can ride in it

That was the way it happened that Linda walked home after school that afternoon between Peter Morrison

and his architect, brought out the Bear Cat, and drove them to Peter's location.

All that day, workmen had been busy under the management of a wellinstructed foreman, removing trees

and bushes and stones and clearing the spot that had been selected for the garage and approximately for the

The soft brownish gray of Linda's dress was exactly the color to intensify the darker brown of her eyes. There

was a fluctuating red in her olive cheeks, a brilliant red framing her even white teeth. Once dressed so that

she was satisfied with the results, Linda immediately forgot her clothes, and plunged into Morrison's plans.

"Peter," she said gravely, with Peter perfectly cognizant of the twinkle in her dark eyes, "Peter, you may save

money in a straightline road, but you're going to sin against your soul if you build it. You'll have to

economize in some other way, and run your road around the base of those boulders, then come in straight to

the line here, and then you should swing again and run out on this point, where guests can have one

bewildering glimpse of the length of our blue valley, and then whip them around this clump of perfumy lilac

and elders, run them to your side entrance, and then scoot the car back to the garage. I think you should place

the front of your house about here." Linda indicated where. "So long as you're buying a place like this you

don't want to miss one single thing; and you do want to make the very most possible out of every beauty you

have. And you mustn't fail to open up and widen the runway from that energetic, enthusiastic spring. Carry it

across your road, sure. It will cost you another little something for a safe bridge, but there's nothing so artistic

as a bridge with a cold stream running under it. And think what a joyful time I'll have, gathering specimens

for you of every pretty water plant that grows in my particular canyon. Any time when you're busy in your

library and you hear my car puffing up the incline and around the corner and rattling across the bridge, you'll

know that I am down here giving you a start of watercress and miners' lettuce and every lovely thing you

could mention that likes to be nibbled or lovedup, while it dabbles its toes in the water."

Peter Morrison looked at Linda reflectively. He looked for such a long moment that Henry Anderson reached

a nebulous conclusion. "Fine!" he cried. "Every one of those suggestions is valuable to an inexperienced man.

"Yes, Henry, you shall," said Peter. "I am going to push this thing as fast as possible, so far as building the

garage is concerned and getting settled in it. After that I don't care if I live on this spot until we know each

other by the inch, before I begin building my home. At the present minute it appeals to me that 'home' is

about the best word in the language of any nation. I have a feeling that what I build here is going to be my

home, very possibly the only one I shall ever have. We must find the spot on which the Lord intended that a

house should grow on this hillside, and then we must build that house so that it has a room suitable for a

workshop in which I may strive, under the best conditions possible, to get my share of the joy of life and to

earn the money that I shall require to support me and entertain my friends; and that sounds about as selfish as

anything possibly could. It seems to be mostly 'me' and 'mine,' and it's not the real truth concerning this

house. I don't believe there is a healthy, normal man living who has not his dream. I have no hesitation

whatever in admitting that I have mine. This house must be two things. It has got to be a concrete workshop

for me, and it has got to be an abstract abiding place for a dream. It's rather difficult to build a dream house

for a dream lady, so I don't know what kind of a fist I am going to make of it."

Linda sat down on a boulder and contemplated her shoes for a minute. Then she raised her evershifting,

eager, young eyes to Peter, and it seemed to him as he looked into them that there were little gold lights

"Why, that's just as easy," she said. "A home is merely a home. It includes a front porch and a back porch and

a fireplace and a bathtub and an ice chest and a view and a garden around it; all the rest is incidental. If you

have more money, you have more incidentals. If you don't have so much, you use your imagination and think

"Now, I wonder," said Peter, "when I find my dream lady, if she will have an elastic imagination."

"No," said Peter, "I haven't found her, and unfortunately she hasn't found me. I have had a strenuous time

getting my start in life. It's mostly a rush from one point of interest to another, dropping at any wayside

station for refreshment and the use of a writing table. Occasionally I have seen a vision that I have wanted to

follow, but I never have had time. So far, the lady of this house is even more of a dream than the house."

"Oh, well, don't worry," said Linda comfortingly. "The world is full of the nicest girls. When you get ready

for a gracious lady I'll find you one that will have an Indiarubber imagination and a great big loving heart

"You hear, Henry?" he said. "I'm destined to have a large family. You must curtail your plans for the

"Well, what I am going to do," said Henry Anderson, "is to build a place suitable for your needs. If any dream

"Now, that isn't a bit nice of you," she said, "and I don't believe Peter will pay the slightest attention to you.

He'll let me make you build a lovely room for the love of his heart, and a great big bright nursery on the

"I never believed," said Henry Anderson, "in counting your chickens before they are hatched. There are a

couple of acres around Peter's house, and he can build an addition as his needs increase."

"Messy idea," said Linda promptly. "Thing to do, when you build a house, is to build it the way you want it

for the remainder of your life, so you don't have to tear up the scenery every few years, dragging in lumber

for expansion. And I'll tell you another thing. If the homemakers of this country don't get the idea into their

heads pretty soon that they are not going to be able to hold their own with the rest of the world, with no

children, or one child in the family, there's a sad day of reckoning coming. With the records at the patent

office open to the world, you can't claim that the brain of the white man is not constructive. You can look at

our records and compare them with those of countries ages and ages older than we are, which never

discovered the beauties of a Dover eggbeater or a washing machine or a churn or a railroad or a steamboat

or a bridge. We are head and shoulders above other nations in invention, and just as fast as possible, we are

falling behind in the birth rate. The red man and the yellow man and the brown man and the black man can

look at our eggbeaters and washing machines and bridges and big guns, and go home and copy them; and

use them while rearing even bigger families than they have now. If every home in Lilac Valley had at least

six sturdy boys and girls growing up in it with the proper love of country and the proper realization of the

white man's right to supremacy, and if all the world now occupied by white men could make an equal record,

where would be the talk of the yellow peril? There wouldn't be any yellow peril. You see what I mean?"

"Yes, young woman," said Peter gravely, "I see what you mean, but this is the first time I ever heard a

"Got them in Multiflores Canyon from my father to start with," said Linda, "but recently I have been

thinking, because there is a boy in high school who is making a great fight for a better scholarship record than

a Jap in his class. I brood over it every spare minute, day or night, and when I say my prayers I implore high

Heaven to send him an idea or to send me one that I can pass on to him, that will help him to beat that Jap."

"I see," said Peter Morrison. "We'll have to take time to talk this over. It's barely possible I might be able to

"You let that kid fight his own battles," said Henry Anderson roughly. "He's no proper bugcatcher. I feel it

"I don't know about that," she said gaily. "He's a wideawake specimen; he has led his class for four years

when the Jap didn't get ahead of him. But, all foolishness aside, take my word for it, Peter, you'll be sorry if

you don't build this house big enough for your dream lady and for all the little dreams that may spring from

"Nightmares, you mean," said Henry Anderson. "I can't imagine a bunch of kids muddying up this spring and

"Yes," said Linda with scathing sarcasm, "and wouldn't our government be tickled to death to have a clear

spring and a perfect bush and a singing bird, if it needed six men to go over the top to handle a regiment of

"Well, your estimate is too low, Linda," he said in his nicest drawling tone of voice. "Believe me, one U. S.

kid will never march in a whole regiment of Japanese. They won't lay down their guns and walk to surrender

as bunches of Germans did. Nobody need ever think that. They are as good fighters as they are imitators.

There's nothing for you to do, Henry, but to take to heart what Miss Linda has said. Plan the house with a

suite for a dream lady, and a dining room, a sleeping porch and a nursery big enough for the six children

"I am in the deepest kind of earnest," said Peter Morrison. "What Miss Linda says is true. As a nation, our

people are pampering themselves and living for their own pleasures. They won't take the trouble or endure

the pain required to bear and to rear children; and the day is rolling toward us, with every turn of the planet

one day closer, when we are going to be outnumbered by a combination of peoples who can take our own

tricks and beat us with them. We must pass along the good word that the one thing America needs above

every other thing on earth is HOMES AND HEARTS BIG ENOUGH FOR CHILDREN, as were the homes

of our grandfathers, when no joy in life equaled the joy of a new child in the family, and if you didn't have a

"Well, if that is the way you see the light, we must enlarge this house. As designed, it included every

feminine convenience anyway. But when I build my house I am going to build it for myself."

"Then don't talk any more about being my bugcatcher," said Linda promptly, "because when I build my

house it's going to be a nest that will hold six at the very least. My heart is perfectly set on a brood of six."

Linda was quite unaware that the two men were studying her closely, but if she had known what was going

on in their minds she would have had nothing to regret, because both of them found her very attractive, and

both of them were wondering how anything so superficial as Eileen could be of the same blood as Linda.

"No," said Linda, "I am as interested as I can be. Finish everything you want to do before we go. I hope

you're going to let me come over often and watch you with your building. Maybe I can get an idea for some

things I want to do. Eileen and I have our house divided by a Mason and Dixon line. On her side is Mother's

suite, the dining room, the living room and the front door. On mine there's the garage and the kitchen and

Katy's bedroom and mine and the library and the billiard room. At the present minute I am interested in

adapting the library to my requirements instead of Father's, and I am emptying the billiard room and

furnishing it to make a workroom. I have a small talent with a brush and pencil, and I need some bare walls to

tack my prints on to dry, and I need numerous places for all the things I am always dragging in from the

desert and the canyons; and since I have the Bear Cat running, what I have been doing in that line with a

"How did it come," inquired Henry Anderson, "that you had that car jacked up so long?"

"Why, hasn't anybody told you," asked Linda, "about our day of the Black Shadow?"

"John Gilman wrote me when it happened," said Peter softly, "but I don't believe it has been mentioned

Linda turned to Henry Anderson, and with trembling lips and paling cheeks, in a few brief sentences she gave

him the details. Then she said to Peter Morrison in a low voice: "And that is the why of Marian Thorne's

"That white head puzzled me beyond anything I ever saw," he said. "I meant to ask John about it. He used to

talk to me and write to me often about her, and lately he hasn't; when I came I saw the reason, and so you see

"Well, there's nothing the matter with my tongue," said Linda. "It's loose at both ends. Marian was an expert

driver. She drove with the same calm judgment and precision and graceful skill that she does everything else,

but the curve was steep and something in the brakes was defective. It broke with a snap and there was not a

thing she could do. Enough was left of the remains of the car to prove that. Ten days afterward her head was

almost as white as snow. Before that it was as dark as mine. But her body is just as young and her heart is just

as young and her face is even more beautiful. I do think that a white crown makes her lovelier than she was

before. I have known Marian ever since I can remember, and I don't know one thing about her that I could not

look you straight in the eye and tell you all about. There is not a subterfuge or an evasion or a small mean

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Peter Morrison. "And while you are talking about nice women, we met a mighty

fine one at Riverside on Sunday. Her name is Mary Louise Whiting. Do you know her?"

"Not personally," said Linda. "I don't recall that I ever saw her. I know her brother, Donald. He is the

"I liked her too," said Henry Anderson. "And by the way, Miss Linda, haven't bugcatchers any reputation at

all as nest builders? Is it true that among feathered creatures the hen builds the home?"

"No, it's not," said Linda promptly. "Male birds make a splendid record carrying nest material. What is true is

"Well, what I am getting at," said Henry Anderson, "is this. Is there anything I can do to help you with that

billiard room that you're going to convert to a workroom? What do you lack in it that you would like to have?

Do you need more light or air, or a fireplace, or what? When you take us to the station, suppose you drive us

past your house and give me a look at that room and let me think over it a day or two. I might be able to make

"Now that is positively sweet of you," said Linda. "I never thought of such a thing as either comfort or

convenience. I thought I had to take that room as it stands and do the best I could with it, but since you

mention it, it's barely possible that more air might be agreeable and also more light, and if there could be a

small fireplace built in front of the chimney where it goes up from the library fireplace, it certainly would be

"No workroom really has a soul if you can't smell smoke and see red when you go to it at night."

"You little outdoor heathen," laughed Peter Morrison. "One would think you were an Indian."

"I am a fairly good Indian," said Linda. "I have been scouting around with my father a good many years. How

"Does the bed of the spring curve and sweep across the lawn and drop off to the original stream below the

"Including the bridge," said Peter. "I'll have to burn some midnight oil, but I can visualize the bridge."

"And is this house where you 'set up your rest,' as you so beautifully said the other night at dinner, going to

lay its corner stone and grow to its roof a selfish house, or is it going to be generous enough for a gracious

Peter Morrison took off his hat. He turned his face toward the length of Lilac Valley and stood, very tall and

"Even so," he said softly. "My shoulders are broad enough; I have a brain; and I am not afraid to work. If my

heart is not quite big enough yet, I see very clearly how it can be made to expand."

"I have been told," said Linda in a low voice, "that Mary Louise Whiting is a perfect darling."

Peter looked at her from the top of her black head to the tips of her brown shoes. He could have counted the

freckles bridging her nose. The sunburn on her cheeks was very visible; there was something arresting in the

depth of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the lithe slenderness of her young body; she gave the effect of

Henry Anderson was watching. Now he turned his back and commenced talking about plans, but in his heart

he said: "So that's the lay of the land. You've got to hustle yourself, Henry, or you won't have the ghost of a

Later, when they motored down the valley and stopped at the Strong residence, Peter refused to be

monopolized by Eileen. He climbed the two flights of stairs with Henry Anderson and Linda and exhausted

his fund of suggestions as to what could be done to that empty billiard room to make an attractive study of it.

"It would be fine to have another window, and a small skylight would be a dream, and as for the fireplace you

mention, I can't even conceive how great it would be to have that; but my purse is much more limited than

Peter's, and while I have my school work to do every day, my earning capacity is nearly negligible. I can only

pick up a bit here and there with my brush and pencil place cards and Easter cards and valentines, and

once or twice magazine covers, and little things like that. I don't see my way clear to lumber and glass and

Peter looked at Henry, and Henry looked at Peter, and a male high sign, ancient as day, passed between them.

"Easiest thing in the world," said Peter. "It's as sure as shooting that when my three or four fireplaces, which

Henry's present plans call for, are built, there is going to be all the material left that can be used in a light tiny

fireplace such as could be built on a third floor, and when the figuring for the house is done it could very

easily include the cutting of a skylight and an extra window or two here, and getting the material in with my

"Why, you two perfectly nice men!" she said. "I haven't felt as I do this minute since I lost Daddy. It's

wonderful to be taken care of. It's better than cream puffs with almond flavoring."

"You're the darndest kid!" he said. "One minute you're smacking your lips over cream puffs, and the next

you're going to the bottom of the yellow peril. I never before saw your combination in one girl. What's the

explanation?" For the second time that evening Linda's specialty in rapture floated free.

"Bunch all the component parts into the one paramount fact that I am Saturday's child," she said, "so I am

constantly on the job of working for a living, and then add to that the fact that I was reared by a nerve

Then they went downstairs, and the men refused both Eileen's and Linda's invitation to remain for dinner.

When they had gone Eileen turned to Linda with a discontented and aggrieved face.

"In the name of all that's holy, what are you doing or planning to do?" she demanded.

"Not anything that will cost you a penny beyond my natural rights," said Linda quietly.

"That is not answering my question," said Eileen. "You're not of age and you're still under the authority of a

guardian. If you can't answer me, possibly you can him. Shall I send John Gilman to ask what I want to know

"When did I ever ask you any questions about what you chose to do?" asked Linda. "I am merely following

the example that you have previously set me. John Gilman and I used to be great friends. It might help both

"And has anyone told you that I am not leading my class at the present minute?" asked Linda.

"No," said Eileen, "but what I want to point out to you is that the minute you start running with the boys you

"Don't you believe it," said Linda quietly. "I'm not built that way. I shan't concentrate on any boy to the

Eileen went to her room and sat down to think; and the more she thought, the deeper grew her anger and

chagrin; and to the indifference that always had existed in her heart concerning Linda was added in that

moment a new element. She was jealous of her. How did it come that a lanky, gangling kid in her tees had

been paid a visit by the son of possibly the most cultured and influential family of the city, people of prestige,

comfortable wealth, and unlimited popularity? For four years she had struggled to gain an entrance in some

way into Louise Whiting's intimate circle of friends, and she had ended by shutting the door on the only son

of the family. And why had she ever allowed Linda to keep the runabout? It was not proper that a young girl

should own a high powered car like that. It was not proper that she should drive it and go racing around the

country, heaven knew where, and with heaven knew whom. Eileen bit her lip until it almost bled. Her eyes

were hateful and her hands were nervous as she reviewed the past week. She might think any mean thing that

a mean brain could conjure up, but when she calmed down to facts she had to admit that there was not a

reason in the world why Linda should not drive the car she had driven for her father, or why she should not

take with her Donald Whiting or Peter Morrison or Henry Anderson. The thing that rankled was that the car

belonged to Linda. The touring car which she might have owned and driven, had she so desired, lay in an

extremely slender string of pearls around her neck at that instant. She reflected that if she had kept her car and

made herself sufficiently hardy to drive it, she might have been the one to have taken Peter Morrison to his

"I've been a fool," said Eileen, tugging at the pearls viciously. "They are nothing but a little bit of a string that

looks as if I were trying to do something and couldn't, at best. What I've got to do is to think more of myself.

I've got to plan some way to prevent Linda from being too popular until I really get my mind made up as to

"'A house that is divided against itself cannot stand,'" quoted Linda. "I must keep in mind what Eileen said,

not that there is the slightest danger, but to fall behind in my grades is a thing that simply must not happen. If

it be true that Peter and Henry can so easily and so cheaply add a few improvements in my workroom in

connection with Peter's building, I can see no reason why they shouldn't do it, so long as I pay for it. I haven't

a doubt but that there will be something I can do for Peter, before he finishes his building, that he would

greatly appreciate, while, since I'm handy with my pencil, I MIGHT be able to make a few head and tail

pieces for some of his articles that would make them more attractive. I don't want to use any friend of mine: I

don't want to feel that I am not giving quite as much as I get, but I think I see my way clear, between me and

"First thing I do I must go through Father's books and get the money for them, so I'll know my limitation

when I come to select furniture. And I don't know that I am going to be so terribly modest when it comes to

naming the sum with which I'll be satisfied for my allowance. Possibly I shall exercise my ageold

prerogative and change my mind; I may just say 'half' right out loud and stick to it. And there's another thing.

Since the editor of Everybody's Home has started my department and promised that if it goes well he will

give it to me permanently, I can certainly depend on something from that. He has used my Introduction and

two instalments now. I should think it might be fair to talk payments pretty soon. He should give me fifty

dollars for a recipe with its perfectly good natural history and embellished with my own vegetable and floral

"In the meantime I think I might buy my worktable and possibly an easel, so I can have real room to spread

out my new material and see how it would feel to do one drawing completely unhampered. I'll order the table

tonight, and then I'll begin on the books, because I must have Saturday free; and I must be thinking about the

most attractive and interesting place I can take Donald to. I just have to keep him interested until he gets

going of his own accord, because he shall beat Oka Sayye. I wouldn't let Donald say it but I don't mind

saying myself to myself with no one present except myself that in all my life I have never seen anything so

masklike as the stolid little square head on that Jap. I have never seen anything I dislike more than the oily,

stiff, black hair standing up on it like menacing bristles. I have never had but one straight look deep into his

eyes, but in that look I saw the only thing that ever frightened me in looking into a man's eyes in my whole

life. And there is one thing that I have to remember to caution Donald about. He must carry on this contest in

a perfectly open, fair, and aboveboard way, and he simply must not antagonize Oka Sayye. There are so

many of the Japs. They all look so much alike, and there's a blood brotherhood between them that will make

them protect each other to the death against any white man. It wouldn't be safe for Donald to make Oka

Sayye hate him. He had far better try to make him his friend and put a spirit of honest rivalry into his heart;

but come to think of it, there wasn't anything like that in my one look into Oka Sayye's eyes. I don't know

With this thought in her mind Linda walked slowly as she approached the high school the next time. Far

down the street, over the walks and across the grounds, her eyes were searching eagerly for the tall slender

figure of Donald Whiting. She did not see him in the morning, but at noon she encountered him in the hall.

"Looking for you," he cried gaily when he saw her. "I've got my pry in on Trig. The professor's interested.

Dad fished out an old Trig that he used when he was a boy and I have some new angles that will keep my

"Good for you! Joyous congratulations! You've got the idea!" cried Linda. "Go to it! Start something all

along the line, but make it something founded on brains and reason and common sense. But, Donald, I was

Donald Whiting bent toward her. The faintest suspicion of a tinge of color crept into his cheeks.

"Only this," she said in almost a breathless whisper. "There is nothing in California I am afraid of except a

Jap, and I am afraid of them, not potentially, not on account of what all of us know they are planning in the

backs of their heads for the future, but right here and now, personally and physically. Don't antagonize Oka

Sayye. Don't be too precipitate about what you're trying to do. Try to make it appear that you're developing

ideas for the interest and edification of the whole class. Don't incur his personal enmity. Use tact."

"You think I am afraid of that little jiujitsu?', he scoffed. "I can lick him with one hand."

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Linda, measuring his height and apparent strength and fitness. "I haven't a doubt

of it. But let me ask you this confidentially: Have you got a friend who would slip in and stab him in the back

"Wouldn't that be going rather far?" he asked. "I think I have some fairly good friends among the fellows, but

"That is precisely the point," cried Linda. "You haven't a friend you would ask; and you haven't a friend who

would do it, if you did. But don't believe for one second that Oka Sayye hasn't half a dozen who would make

away with you at an unexpected time and in a secluded place, and vanish, if it would in any way further Oka

Sayye's ambition, or help establish the supremacy of the Japanese in California."

He was looking far past Linda and now his eyes were narrowed in thought. "I believe you're RIGHT about

"I've thought of you so often since I tried to spur you to beat Oka Sayye," said Linda. "I feel a sort of

responsibility for you. It's to the honor and glory of all California, and the United States, and the white race

everywhere for you to beat him, but if any harm should come to you I would always feel that I shouldn't have

"Now that's foolishness," said Donald earnestly. "If I am such a dub that I didn't have the ambition to think up

some way to beat a Jap myself, no matter what happens you shouldn't regret having been the one to point out

to me my manifest duty. Dad is a Harvard man, you know, and that is where he's going to send me, and in

talking about it the other night I told him about you, and what you had said to me. He's the greatest old scout,

and was mightily interested. He went at once and opened a box of books in the garret and dug out some stuff

that will be a big help to me. He's going to keep posted and see what he can do; he said even worse things to

me than you did; so you needn't feel that you have any responsibility; besides that, it's not proved yet that I

"Yes, it is!" said Linda, sending a straight level gaze deep into his eyes. "Yes, it is! Whenever a white man

makes up his mind what he's going to do, and puts his brain to work, he beats any man, of any other color.

"Fat chance I have not to," said Donald, laughing ruefully. "If I don't beat him I am disgraced at home, and

with you; before I try very long in this highly specialized effort I am making, every professor in the high

school and every member of my class is bound to become aware of what is going on. You're mighty right

about it. I have got to beat him or disgrace myself right at the beginning of my nice young career."

"Oh, come with the lark for all I care," said Linda. "Early morning in the desert is a mystery and a miracle,

and the larks have been there just long enough to get their voices properly tuned for their purest notes."

Then she turned and hurried away. Her first leisure minute after reaching home she went to the library

wearing one of Katy's big aprons, and carrying a brush and duster. Beginning at one end of each shelf, she

took down the volumes she intended to sell, carefully dusted them, wiped their covers, and the place on

which they had stood, and then opened and leafed through them so that no scrap of paper containing any

notes or memoranda of possible value should be overlooked. It was while handling these volumes that Linda

shifted several of the books written by her father, to separate them from those with which she meant to part.

She had grown so accustomed to opening each book she handled and looking through it, that she

mechanically opened the first one she picked up and from among its leaves there fell a scrap of loose paper.

She picked it up and found it was a letter from the publishers of the book. Linda's eyes widened suddenly as

Sending you a line of congratulations. You have gone to the head of the list of "best sellers" among medical

works, and the cheque I draw you for the past six months' royalties will be considerably larger than that

The signature was that of Frederic Dickman, the editor of one of the biggest publishing houses of the country.

"Hm," she said to herself softly. "Now that is a queer thing. That letter was written nearly five years ago. I

don't know why I never thought of royalties since Daddy went. I frequently heard him mention them before. I

suppose they're being paid to John Gilman as administrator, or to the Consolidated Bank, and cared for with

Father's other business. There's no reason why these books should not keep on selling. There are probably the

same number of young men, if not a greater number, studying medicine every year. I wonder now, about

Then Linda began to examine books more carefully than before. The letter she carried with her when she

went to her room; but she made a point of being on the lawn that evening when John Gilman came, and after

talking to him a few minutes, she said very casually: "John, as Father's administrator, does a royalty from his

"I don't suppose," said Linda casually, "it would amount to enough to keep one in shoes these inflated days."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said John testily. "I have seen a few of those cheques in your Father's time.

Then she led him to the back of the house and talked the incident out of his mind as cleverly as possible by

giving him an intensive botanical study of Cotyledon. But she could not interest him quite so deeply as she

had hoped, for presently he said: "Eileen tells me that you're parting with some of the books."

"Only technical ones for which I could have no possible use," said Linda. "I need clothes, and have found that

had I a proper place to work in and proper tools to work with, I could earn quite a bit with my brush and

pencil, and so I am trying to get enough money together to fit up the billiard room for a workroom, since

"I see," said John Gilman. "I suppose running a house is extremely expensive these days, but even so the

income from your estate should be sufficient to dress a schoolgirl and provide for anything you would want

"That's what I have always thought myself," said Linda; "but Eileen doesn't agree with me, and she handles

the money. When the first of the month comes, we are planning to go over things together, and she is going to

"That is exactly as it should be," said Gilman. "I never realized till the other night at dinner that you have

grown such a great girl, Linda. That's fine! Fix your workroom the way you would like to have it, and if

there's anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to command me. I haven't seen you often

"No," said Linda, "but I don't feel that it is exactly my fault. Marian and I were always pals. When I saw that

you preferred Eileen, I kept with Marian to comfort her all I could. I don't suppose she cared, particularly.

She couldn't have, or she would at least have made some effort to prevent Eileen from monopolizing you. She

probably was mighty glad to be rid of you; but since you had been together so much, I thought she might

John Gilman's face flushed. He stood very still, while he seemed deeply thoughtful.

"Of course you were free to follow your inclinations, or Eileen's machinations, whichever you did follow,"

Linda said lightly, "but 'them as knows' could tell you, John, as Katy so well puts it, that you have made the

The Eileen who took possession of John was an Eileen with whom he was not acquainted. He had known, the

night of the dinner party, that Eileen was pouting, but there had been no chance to learn from her what her

grievance was, and by the next time they met she was a bundle of flashing allurement, so he ignored the

occurrence. This evening, for the first time, it seemed to him that Eileen was not so beautiful a woman as he

had thought her. Something had roiled the blood in her delicate veins until it had muddied the clear freshness

of her smooth satiny skin. There was discontent in her eyes, which were her most convincing attraction. They

were big eyes, wide open and candid. She had so trained them through a lifetime of practice that she could

meet other eyes directly while manipulating her most dextrous evasion. Whenever Eileen was most

deceptively subtle, she was looking straight at her victim with the innocent appeal of a baby in her gaze.

John Gilman had had his struggle. He had succeeded. He had watched, and waited, and worked incessantly,

and when his opportunity came he was ready. Success had come to such a degree that in a short time he had

assured himself of comfort for any woman he loved. He knew that his appearance was quite as pleasing as

that of his friend. He knew that in manner and education they were equals. He was now handling large

business affairs. He had made friends in high places. Whenever Eileen was ready, he would build and furnish

a home he felt sure would be equal, if not superior, to what Morrison was planning. Why had Eileen felt that

All that day she had annoyed him, because there must have been in the very deeps of his soul "a still, small

voice" whispering to him that he had not lived up to the best traditions of a gentleman in his course with

Marian. While no definite plans had been made, there had been endless assumption. Many times they had

talked of the home they would make together. When he reached the point where he decided that he never had

loved Marian as a man should love the woman he marries, he felt justified in turning to Eileen, but in his

heart he knew that if he had been the man he was pleased to consider himself, he would have gone to Marian

Thorne and explained, thereby keeping her friendship, while he now knew that he must have earned her

The day at Riverside had been an enigma he could not solve. Eileen was gay to a degree that was almost

boisterous. She had attracted attention and comment which no wellbred woman would have done.

The growing discontent in John's soul had increased under Linda's direct attack. He had known Linda since

she was four years old and had been responsible for some of her education. He had been a large influence in

teaching Linda from childhood to be a good sport, to be sure she was right and then go ahead, and if she hurt

A thing patent to the eye of every man who turned an appraising look upon Linda always had been one of

steadfast loyalty. You could depend upon her. She was the counterpart of her father; and Doctor Strong had

been loved by other men. Wherever he had gone he had been surrounded. His figure had been one that

attracted attention. When he had spoken, his voice and what he had to say had commanded respect. And then

there had emanated from him that peculiar physical charm which gives such pleasing and distinguished

personality to a very few people in this world. This gift too had descended to Linda. She could sit and look

straight at you with her narrow, interested eyes, smile faintly, and make you realize what she thought and felt

without opening her lips. John did not feel very well acquainted with the girl who had dominated the recent

dinner party, but he did see that she was attractive, that both Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson had been

greatly amused and very much entertained by her. He had found her so interesting himself that he had paid

Tonight he was forced to study Eileen, for the sake of his own comfort to try to conciliate her. He was

uncomfortable because he was unable to conduct himself as Eileen wished him to, without a small sickening

disgust creeping into his soul. Before the evening was over he became exasperated, and ended by asking

"Isn't it just barely possible," asked Eileen, "that there might be other people who would annoy and

exasperate me? I have not hinted that you have done anything, although I don't know that it's customary for a

"For the love of Mike!" said John Gilman. "Am I to be found fault with for crossing the lawn a minute to see

how Linda's wild garden is coming on? I have dug and helped set enough of those plants to justify some

"And the garden was your sole subject of conversation?" inquired Eileen, implied doubt conveyed nicely.

"No, it was not," answered Gilman, all the bulldog in his nature coming to the surface.

"As I knew perfectly," said Eileen. "I admit that I'm not feeling myself. Things began going wrong recently,

and everything has gone wrong since. I think it all began with Marian Thorne's crazy idea of selling her home

"Marian never tried to ape a man in her life," said John, instantly yielding to a sense of justice. "She is as

"Do you mean to say that you think studying architecture is a woman's work?" sneered Eileen.

"Yes, I do," said Gilman emphatically. "Women live in houses. They're in them nine tenths of the time to a

man's one tenth. Next to rocking a cradle I don't know of any occupation in this world more distinctly

"She was showing me a plant, a rare Echeveria of the Cotyledon family, that she tobogganed down one side

of Multiflores Canyon and delivered safely on the roadway without its losing an appreciable amount of

Eileen broke in rudely. "Linda has missed Marian. There's not a possible thing to make life uncomfortable for

me that she is not doing. You needn't tell me you didn't see and understand her rude forwardness the other

"No, I didn't see it," said John, "because the fact is I thought the kid was positively charming, and so did Peter

and Henry because both of them said so. There's one thing you must take into consideration, Eileen. The time

has come when she should have clothes and liberty and opportunity to shape her life according to her

inclinations. Let me tell you she will attract attention in georgette and laces."

"And where are the georgette and laces to come from?" inquired Eileen sarcastically. "All outgo and no

income for four years is leaving the Strong finances in mighty precarious shape, I can tell you."

"All right," said Gilman, "I'm financially comfortable now. I'm ready. Say the word. We'll select our location

and build our home, and let Linda have what there is of the Strong income till she is settled in life. You have

"Yes," said Eileen furiously, "I have 'pretty well' had it, in a few little dresses that I have altered myself and

very frequently made entirely. I have done the best I could, shifting and skimping, and it's not accomplished

anything that I have really wanted. According to men, the gas and the telephone and the electric light and the

taxes and food and cook pay for themselves. All a woman ever spends money on is clothes!"

"Eileen," chuckled John Gilman, "this sounds exactly as if we were married, and we're not, yet."

"No," said Eileen, "thank heaven we're not. If it's come to the place where you're siding with everybody else

against me, and where you're more interested in what my kid sister has to say to you than you are in me, I

Then, from stress of nerve tension and long practice, some big tears gushed up and threatened to overflow

Eileen's lovely eyes. That never should happen, for tears are salt water and they cut little rivers through even

the most carefully and skillfully constructed complexion, while Eileen's was looking its worst that evening.

She hastily applied her handkerchief, and John Gilman took her into his arms; so the remainder of the

evening it was as if they were not married. But when John returned to the subject of a home and begged

Eileen to announce their engagement and let him begin work, she evaded him, and put him off, and had to

have time to think, and she was not ready, and there were many excuses, for none of which Gilman could see

any sufficient reason. When he left Eileen that night, it was with a heavy heart.

Throughout the week Linda had worked as never during her life previously, in order to save Saturday for

Donald Whiting. She ran the Bear Cat down to the garage and had it looked over once more to be sure that

everything was all right. Friday evening, on her way from school, she stopped at a grocery where she knew

Eileen kept an account, and for the first time ordered a few groceries. These she carried home with her, and

Katy fully realized that Linda was still her child, with no thought in her mind save standing at the head of her

classes, carrying on the work she had begun with her father, keeping up her nature study, and getting the best

time she could out of life in the open as she had been taught to do from her cradle.

Katy had not the slightest intention of opening her lips to say one word that might put any idea into the head

of her beloved child, but she saw no reason why she herself should not harbor all the ideas she pleased.

Whereupon, actuated by a combination of family pride, love, ambition in her chosen profession, Katy made

ready to see that on the morrow the son of Frederick Whiting should be properly nourished on his outing with

At six o'clock Saturday morning Linda ran the Bear Cat to the back door, where she and Katy packed it.

Before they had finished, Donald Whiting came down the sidewalk, his cheeks flushed with the exercise of

walking, his eyes bright with anticipation, his cause forever wonin case he had a causewith Katy,

because she liked the wholesome, hearty manner in which he greeted Linda, and she was dumbfounded when

he held out his hand to her and said laughingly: "Blessed among women, did you put in a fine large

"No," said Katy, "I'll just tell ye flatfooted there ain't going to be any punch, but, young sir, you're eshcortin'

a very capable young lady, and don't ye bewail the punch, because ye might be complimenting your face with

"Ye must have a poor opinion of us," laughed Katy, "if ye are thinking ye can get to the end of our limitations

in one lunch. Fourteen years me and Miss Linda's been on this lunchbox stunt. Don't ye be thinkin' ye can

So they said goodbye to Katy and rolled past Eileen's room on the way to the desert. Eileen stood at the

window watching them, and never had her heart been so full of discontent and her soul the abiding place of

such envy or her mind so busy. Just when she had thought life was going to yield her what she craved, she

As the Bear Cat traversed Lilac Valley, Linda was pointing out Peter Morrison's location. She was telling

Donald Whiting where to find Peter's articles, and what a fine man he was, and that he had promised to think

how he could help with their plan to make of Donald a better scholar than was Oka Sayye.

"But he is scarcely more of a stranger than I am," answered Linda. "He is a writer. He is interested in

humanity. It's the business of every man in this world to reach out and help every boy with whom he comes

in contact into the biggest, finest manhood possible. He only knows that you're a boy tackling a big job that

means much to every white boy to have you succeed with, and for that reason he's just as interested as I am.

Maybe, when we come in this evening, I'll run up to his place, and you can talk it over with him. If your

father helped you at one angle, it's altogether probable that Peter Morrison could help you at another."

Donald Whiting rubbed his knee reflectively. He was sitting half turned in the wide seat so that he might

"Well, that's all right," he said heartily. "You can write me down as willing and anxious to take all the help I

can get, for it's going to be no microscopic job, that I can tell you. One week has waked up the Jap to the fact

that there's something doing, and he's digging in and has begun, the last day or two, to speak up in class and

suggest things himself. Since I've been studying him and watching him, I have come to the conclusion that he

is much older than I am. Something he said in class yesterday made me think he had probably had the best

schooling Japan could give him before he came here. The next time you meet him look for a suspicion of

gray hairs around his ears. He's too blamed comprehensive for the average boy of my age. You said the Japs

were the best imitators in the world and I have an idea in the back of my head that before I get through with

Linda nodded as she shot the Bear Cat across the streetcar tracks and headed toward the desert. The engine

was purring softly as it warmed up. The car was running smoothly. The sun of early morning was shining on

them through bracing, salt, cool air, and even in the valley the larks were busy, and the mockingbirds, and

from every wayside bush the rosy finches were singing. All the world was coming to the exquisite bloom of a

halftropical country. Up from earth swept the heavy odors of blooming citrus orchards, millions of roses,

and the overpowering sweetness of gardens and cultivated flowers; while down from the mountains rolled the

delicate breath of the misty blue lilac, the pungent odor of California sage, and the spicy sweet of the

lemonade bush. They were two young things, free for the day, flying down a perfect road, adventuring with

Providence. They had only gone a few miles when Donald Whiting took off his hat, stuffed it down beside

him, and threw back his head, shaking his hair to the wind in a gesture so soon to become familiar to Linda.

She glanced across at him and found him looking at her. A smile broke over her lips. One of her most

"It's the best thing that ever happened to me," answered Donald Whiting instantly. "Our car is a mighty good

one and Dad isn't mean about letting me drive it. I can take it frequently and can have plenty of gas and take

my crowd; but lordy, I don't believe there's a boy or girl living that doesn't just positively groan when they

see one of these little gray Bear Cats go loping past. And I never even had a ride in one before. I can't get

over the fact that it's yours. It wouldn't seem so funny if it belonged to one of the fellows."

With steady hand and gradually increasing speed, Linda put the Bear Cat over the roads of early morning.

Sometimes she stopped in the shade of pepper, eucalyptus, or palm, where the larks were specializing in their

ageold offertory. And then again they went racing until they reached the real desert. Linda ran the car under

the shade of a tall clump of bloomwhitened alders. She took off her hat, loosened the hair at her temples,

"It's just beginning to be good," she said. She began pointing with her slender hand. "That gleam you see over

there is the gold of a small clump of early poppies. The purple beyond it is lupin. All these exquisite colors

on the floor are birds'eyes and baby blue eyes, and the misty white here and there is forgetmenot. It won't

be long til thousands and thousands of yucca plants will light their torches all over the desert and all the

alders show their lacy mist. Of course you know how exquisitely the Spaniards named the yucca 'Our Lord's

Candles.' Isn't that the prettiest name for a flower, and isn't it the prettiest thought?"

"Oh, well, that'll be all right," said Linda. "I wondered if you'd go murdering yourself like a tenderfoot."

"What's the use of all this artillery?" inquired Donald as he stepped from the car.

"Better put on your hat. You're taller than most of the bushes; you'll find slight shade," cautioned Linda. "The

use is purely a matter of selfprotection. The desert has got such a devil of a fight for existence, without

shade and practically without water, that it can't afford to take any other chance of extermination, and so it

protects itself with needles here and spears there and sabers at other places and roots that strike down to

"For all you know," laughed Linda, "I may be going to education you up a little. Dare you to tell me how

many kinds of soap I can find today that the Indians used, and where I can find it."

"And born and reared within a few miles of the desert!" scoffed Linda. "Nice Indian you'd make. We take our

choice today between finding deerbrush and digging for amole, because the mock oranges aren't ripe

enough to be nice and soapy yet. I've got the deerbrush spotted, and we'll pass an amole before we go very

far. Look for a wavy bluegreen leaf like a wide blade of grass and coming up like a lily."

So together they went to the deerbrush and gathered a bunch of flowers that Linda bound together with

some wiry desert grass and fastened to her belt. It was not long before Donald spied an amole, and having

found one, discovered many others growing near. Then Linda led the way past thorns and brush, past

impenetrable beds of cholla, until they reached a huge barrel cactus that she had located with the glasses.

Beside this bristling monstrous growth Linda paused, and reached for the axe, which Donald handed to her.

"Short of Victrola needles?" she inquired. "Because if you are, these make excellent ones. A lot more singing

"Well, I am surely going to try that," said Donald. "Never heard of such a thing."

Linda chopped off a section of plant. Then she picked one of the knives from the bucket and handed it to him.

She set her feet firmly in the sand, swung the axe, and with a couple of deft strokes sliced off the top of the

huge plant, and from the heart of it lifted up half a bucketful of the juicy interior, with her dipper.

"If we didn't have drink, here is where we would get it, and mighty good it is," she said, pushing down with

the dipper until she formed a small pool in the heart of the plant which rapidly filled. "Have a taste."

Then by a roundabout route they started on their return to the car. Once Linda stopped and gathered a small

bunch of an extremely curious little plant spreading over the ground, a tiny reddish vine with quaint round

leaves that looked as if a drop of white paint rimmed with maroon had fallen on each of them.

"Use it on whichever of us gets the first snake bite," said Linda. "That is rattlesnake weed and if a poisonous

snake bites you, score each side of the wound with the cleanest, sharpest knife you have and then bruise the

"Why sure," said Linda, "that is what I would do if a snake were so ungallant as to bite me, but there doesn't

seem to be much of the antagonistic element in my nature. I don't go through the desert exhaling the odor of

fright, and so snakes lie quiescent or slip away so silently that I never see them."

"Why that is the very first lesson Daddy ever taught me when he took me to the mountains and the desert. If

you are afraid, your system throws off formic acid, and the animals need only the suspicion of a scent of it to

make them ready to fight. Any animal you encounter or even a bee, recognizes it. One of the first things that I

remember about Daddy was seeing him sit on the running board of the runabout buckling up his desert boots

as he got ready to take me on his back and go into the desert for our first lesson; he told me that a man was

perfectly safe in going to the forest or the desert or anywhere he chose among any kind of animals if he had

sufficient selfcontrol that no odor of fear emanated from him. He said that a man was safe to make his way

anywhere he wanted to go, if he started his journey by recognizing a blood brotherhood with anything living

he would meet on the way; and I have heard Enos Mills say that when he was snow inspector of Colorado he

traveled the crest of the Rockies from one end of the state to the other without a gun or any means of

"And it's something that is very true," said Linda. "I have seen it work times without number. Father and I

went quietly up the mountains, through the canyons, across the desert, and we would never see a snake of any

kind, but repeatedly we would see men with guns and dogs out to kill, to trespass on the rights of the wild,

and they would be hunting for sticks and clubs and firing their guns where we had passed never thinking of

lurking danger. If you start out in accord, at one with Nature, you're quite as safe as you are at home,

sometimes more so. But if you start out to stir up a fight, the occasion is very rare on which you can't

"And that reminds me," said Donald, with a laugh, "that a week ago I came to start a fight with you. What has

"You can search me," laughed Linda, throwing out her hands in a graceful gesture. "There's not a scrap of

fight in my system concerning you, but if Oka Sayye were having a fight with you and I were anywhere

"By the great hocuspocus," he said, "you know, I believe you. If two fellows were having a pitched battle

most of the girls I know would quietly faint or run, but I do believe that you would stand by and help a fellow

"That I surely would," said Linda; "but don't you say 'most of the girls I know' and then make a statement like

that concerning girls, because you prove that you don't know them at all. A few years ago, I very distinctly

and there was nothing to it save that a great poet was trying to pay womanhood everywhere the finest

compliment he knew how. He always has been fundamental in his process of thought. He gets right back to

the heart of primal things. When he wrote that line he was not really thinking that there was a nasty poison in

the heart of a woman or death in her hands. What he was thinking was that in the jungle the female lion or

tiger or jaguar must go and find a particularly secluded cave and bear her young and raise them to be quite

active kittens before she leads them out, because there is danger of the bloodthirsty father eating them when

they are tiny and helpless. And if perchance a male finds the cave of his mate and her tiny young and enters it

to do mischief, then there is no recorded instance I know of in which the female, fighting in defense of her

young, has not been 'more deadly than the male.' And that is the origin of the muchdiscussed line

concerning the female of the species, and it holds good fairly well down the line of the wild. It's even true

among such tiny things as guinea pigs and canary birds. There is a mother element in the heart of every girl.

Daddy used to say that half the women in the world married the men they did because they wanted to mother

them. You can't tell what is in a woman's heart by looking at her. You must bring her face to face with an

emergency before you can say what she'll do, but I would be perfectly willing to stake my life on this: There

is scarcely a girl you know who would see you getting the worst of a fight, say with Oka Sayye, or someone

who meant to kill you or injure you, who would not pick up the first weapon she could lay her hands on,

whether it was an axe or a stick or a stone, and go to your defense, and if she had nothing else to fight with, I

have heard of women who put up rather a tidy battle with their claws. Sounds primitive, doesn't it?"

"It sounds true," said Donald reflectively. "I see, young lady, where one is going to have to measure his

"Pretty thought!" said Linda lightly. "We'll have a great time if you must stop to consider every word before

"Well, anyway," said Donald, "when are we going to have that fight which was the purpose of our coming

"Why, we're not ever going to have it," answered Linda. "I have got nothing in this world to fight with you

about since you're doing your level best to beat Oka Sayye. I have watched your head above the remainder of

"Now that's a queer thing," said Donald, "because I have watched you for three years and wanted to fight

with you about your drygoods, and now since I've known you only such a short while, I don't care two

whoops what you wear. It's a matter of perfect indifference to me. You can wear French heels or baby pumps,

"No, ma'am," said Donald, "it's not a truce. That implies war and we haven't fought. It's not armed neutrality;

it's not even watchful waiting. It's my friend, Linda Strong. Me for her and her for me, if you say so."

He reached out his hand. Linda laid hers in it, and looking into his eyes, she said: "That is a compact. We'll

test this friendship business and see what there is to it. Now come on; let's run for the canyon."

It was only a short time until the Bear Cat followed its trail of the previous Saturday, and, rushing across the

stream, stopped at its former resting place, while Linda and Donald sat looking at the sheerwalled little

"I can see," said Linda, "a stronger tinge in the green. There are more flowers in the carpet. There is more

melody in the birds' song. We are going to have a better time than we had last Saturday. First let's fix up our

So they left the car, and under Linda's direction they reconstructed the old fireplace at which the girl and her

father had cooked when botanizing in Multiflores. In a corner secluded from wind, using the wall of the

canyon for a back wall, big boulders the right distance apart on each side, and small stones for chinking,

She unpacked the lunch box, set the table, and when she had everything in readiness she covered the table,

and taking a package, she carried it on a couple of aluminium pie pans to where her fire was burning crisply.

With a small field axe she chopped a couple of small green branches, pointed them to her liking, and peeled

them. Then she made a poker from one of the saplings they had used to move the rocks, and beat down her

fire until she had a bright bed of deep coals. When these were arranged exactly to her satisfaction, she pulled

some sprays of deer weed bloom from her bundle and, going down to the creek, made a lather and carefully

washed her hands, tucking the towel she used in drying them through her belt. Then she came back to the fire

and, sitting down beside it, opened the package and began her operations. On the long, slender sticks she

strung a piece of tenderloin beef, about three inches in circumference and one fourth of an inch in thickness,

then half a slice of bacon, and then a slice of onion. This she repeated until her skewer would bear no more

weight. Then she laid it across the rocks walling her fire, occasionally turning it while she filled the second

skewer. Then she brought from the car the bucket of pulp she had taken from the barrel cactus, transferred it

to a piece of cheesecloth and deftly extracted the juice. To this she added the contents of a thermos bottle

containing a pint of sugar that had been brought to the boiling point with a pint of water and poured over

some chopped spearmint to which had been added the juice of half a dozen lemons and three or four oranges.

From a small, metallined compartment, Linda took a chunk of ice and dropped it into this mixture.

She was sitting on the ground, one foot doubled under her, the other extended. She had taken off her hat; the

wind and the bushes had roughened her hair. Exercise had brought deep red to her cheeks and her lips.

Happiness had brought a mellow glow to her dark eyes. She had turned back her sleeves, and her slender

hands were fascinatingly graceful in their deft handling of everything she touched. They were a second

edition of the hands with which Alexander Strong had felt out defective nerve systems and made delicate

muscular adjustments. She was wholly absorbed in what she was doing. Sitting on the blanket across from

her Donald Whiting was wholly absorbed in her and he was thinking. He was planning how he could please

her, how he could earn her friendship. He was admitting to himself that he had very little, if anything, to

show for hours of time that he had spent in dancing, at card games, beach picnics, and races. All these things

had been amusing. But he had nothing to show for the time he had spent or the money he had wasted.

Nothing had happened that in any way equipped him for his battle with Oka Sayye. Conversely, this girl,

whom he had resented, whom he had criticized, who had claimed his notice only by her radical difference

from the other girls, had managed, during the few minutes he had first talked with her in the hall, to wound

his pride, to spur his ambition, to start him on a course that must end in lasting and material benefit to him

even if he failed in making a higher record of scholarship than Oka Sayye. It was very certain that the

exercise he was giving his brain must be beneficial. He had learned many things that were intensely

interesting to him and he had not even touched the surface of what he could see that she had been taught by

her father or had learned through experience and personal investigation. She had been coming to the

mountains and the canyons alone, for four years doing by herself what she would have done under her

father's supervision had he lived. That argued for steadfastness and strength of character. She would not utter

one word of flattery. She would say nothing she did not mean. Watching her intently, Donald Whiting

thought of all these things. He thought of what she had said about fighting for him, and he wondered if it

really was true that any girl he knew would fight for him. He hardly believed it when he remembered some of

his friends, so entirely devoted to personal adornment and personal gratification. But Linda had said that all

women were alike in their hearts. She knew about other things. She must know about this. Maybe all women

would fight for their young or for their men, but he knew of no other girl who could drive a Bear Cat with the

precision and skill with which Linda drove. He knew no other girl who was master of the secrets of the desert

and the canyons and the mountains. Certainly he knew no other girl who would tug at great boulders and

build a fireplace and risk burning her fingers and scorching her face to prepare a meal for him. So he watched

At first he thought she was the finest pal a boy ever had, and then he thought how he meant to work to earn

and keep her friendship; and then, as the fire reddened Linda's cheeks and she made running comments while

she deftly turned her skewers of brigand beefsteak, food that half the Boy Scouts in the country had been

eating for four years, there came an idea with which he dallied until it grew into a luring vision.

"Linda," he asked suddenly, "do you know that one of these days you're going to be a beautiful woman?"

Linda turned her skewers with intense absorption. At first he almost thought she had not heard him, but at last

"For goodness' sake, have an eye single to your record for truth and veracity," said Linda. "Doesn't this begin

"It certainly does," said Donald. "It's making me ravenous. But honest, Linda, you are a pretty girl."

"Honest, your foot!" said Linda scornfully. "I am not a pretty girl. I am lean and bony and I've got a beak

where I should have a nose. Speaking of pretty girls, my sister, Eileen, is a pretty girl. She is a downright

"Yes," said Donald, "she is, but she can't hold a candle to you. How did she look when she was your age?"

"I can't remember Eileen," said Linda, "when she was not exquisitely dressed and thinking more about taking

care of her shoes than anything else in the world. I can't remember her when she was not curled, and even

when she was a tiny thing Mother put a dust of powder on her nose. She said her skin was so delicate that it

could not bear the sun. She never could run or play or motor much or do anything, because she has always

had to be saved for the sole purpose of being exquisitely beautiful. Talk about lilies of the field, that's what

Eileen is! She is an improvement on the original lily of the fieldshe's a lily of the drawing room. Me, now,

A minute afterward she slid the savory food from a skewer upon one of the pie pans, tossed back the cover

from the little table, stacked some breadandbutter sandwiches beside the meat and handed the pan to

"Fall to," she said, "and prove that you're a man with an appreciative tummy. Father used to be positively

She slid the food from the second skewer to a pan for herself, settled the fire to her satisfaction and they

began their meal. Presently she filled a cup from the bucket beside her and handed it to Donald. At the same

"Here's to the barrel cactus," she said. "May the desert grow enough of them so that we'll never lack one

Laughingly they drank this toast; and the skewers were filled a second time. When they could eat no more

they packed away the lunch things, buried the fire, took the axe and the field glasses, and started on a trip of

exploration down the canyon. Together they admired delicate and exquisite ferns growing around great gray

boulders. Donald tasted hunters' rock leek, and learned that any he found while on a hunting expedition

would furnish a splendid substitute for water. Linda told him of rare flowers she lacked and what they were

like and how he would be able to identify what she wanted in case he should ever find any when he was out

hunting or with his other friends. They peeped into the nesting places of canyon wrens and doves and finches,

and listened to the exquisite courting songs of the birds whose hearts were almost bursting with the

exuberance of spring and the joy of home making. When they were tired out they went back to the dining

room and after resting a time, they made a supper from the remnants of their dinner. When they were seated

in the car and Linda's hand was on the steering wheel, Donald reached across and covered it with his own.

"Wait a bit," he said. "Before we leave here I want to ask you a question and I want you to make me a

"What is there," said Donald, "that I can do that would give you such pleasure as you have given me?"

Linda could jest on occasions, but by nature she was a serious person. She looked at Donald reflectively.

"Why, I think," she said at last, "that having a friend, having someone who understands and who cares for the

things I do, and who likes to go to the same places and to do the same things, is the biggest thing that has

happened to me since I lost my father. I don't see that you are in any way in my debt, Donald."

"All right then," said the boy, "that brings me to the promise I want you to make me. May we always have

"Sure!" said Linda, "I would be mightily pleased. I'll have to work later at night and scheme, maybe. By good

"Well, hurrah for Saturday! It always was a grand old day," said Donald, "and since I see what it can do in

turning out a girl like you, I've got a better opinion of it than ever. We'll call that settled. I'll always ask you

Then she put the Bear Cat through the creek and on the road and, driving swiftly as she dared, ran to Lilac

She was amazed at the amount of work that had been accomplished. The garage was finished. Peter's

temporary work desk and his cot were in it. A number of his personal belongings were there. The site for his

"Since you're both my friends," she said, "I want you to know each other. This is Donald Whiting, the Senior

I told you about, Mr. Morrison. You know you said you would help him if you could."

"Certainly," said Peter. "I am very glad to know any friend of yours, Miss Linda. Come over to my workroom

"Oh, go and talk it over between yourselves," said Linda. "I am going up here to have a private conversation

with the spring. I want it to tell me confidentially exactly the course it would enjoy running so that when your

house is finished and I come to lay out your grounds I will know exactly how it feels about making a

"Fine!" said Peter. "Take your time and become extremely confidential, because the more I look at the

location and the more I hear the gay chuckling song that that water sings, the more I am in love with your

"It would be a downright sin not to have that water in a convenient place for your children to play in, Peter,"

"Then that's all settled," said Peter. "Now, Whiting, come this way and we'll see whether I can suggest

Peter Morrison glanced after her a second, and then he led Donald Whiting to a nail keg in the garage and

impaled that youngster on the mental point of a mental pin and studied him as carefully as any scientist ever

studied a rare specimen. When finally he let him go, his mental comment was: "He's a mighty fine kid. Linda

Early the following week Linda came from school one evening to find a load of sand and a heap of curiously

"Can it possibly be, Katy," she asked, "that those men are planning to begin work on my room so soon? I am

scared out of almost seven of my five senses. I had no idea they would be ready to begin work until after I

"Don't ye be worried," said Katy. "There's more in me stocking than me leg, and you're as welcome to it as

"Anyway," said Linda, "it will surely take them long enough so that I can pay by the time they finish."

But Linda was not figuring that back of the projected improvements stood two men, each of whom had an

extremely personal reason for greatly desiring to please her. Peter Morrison had secured a slab of sandstone.

He had located a marble cutter to whom he meant to carry it, and was spending much thought that he might

have been using on an article in trying to hit upon exactly the right line or phrase to build in above Linda's

firesomething that would convey to her in a few words a sense of friendship and beauty.

While Peter gazed at the unresponsive gray sandstone and wrote line after line which he immediately

destroyed, Henry Anderson explored the mountain and came in, red faced and perspiring, from miles of

climbing with a bright stone in each hand, or took the car to bring in small heaps too heavy to carry that he

had collected near the roads. They were two men striving for the favor of the same girl. How Linda would

have been amused had she understood the situation, or how Eileen would have been provoked, neither of the

The workmen came after Linda left and went before her return. Having been cautioned to silence, Katy had

not told her when work actually began; and so it happened that, going to her room one evening, she unlocked

the door and stepped inside to face the completed fireplace. The firebox was not very large but ample. The

hearthstone was a big sheet of smooth gray sandstone. The sides and top were Henry's collection of brilliant

boulders, carefully and artistically laid in blue mortar, and over the firebox was set Peter's slab of gray

sandstone. On it were four deeply carved lines. The quaint Old English lettering was filled even to the surface

with a red mortar, while the capitals were done in dull blue. The girl slowly read:

Voiceless stones, with Flametongues Preach Sermons struck from Nature's Lyre; Notes of Love and Trust

In the firebox stood a squat pair of black andirons, showing age and usage. A rough eucalyptus log waited

across them while the shavings from the placing of the mantel and the cutting of the windows were tucked

beneath it. Linda stood absorbed a minute. She looked at the skylight, flooding the room with the light she so

needed coming from the right angle. She went over to the new window that gave her a view of the length of

the valley she loved and a most essential draft. When she turned back to the fireplace her hands were

"Now isn't that too lovely of them?" she said softly. "Isn't that altogether wonderful? How I wish Daddy were

In order to come as close to him as possible she did the next best thing. She sat down at her table and wrote a

long letter to Marian, telling her everything she could think of that would interest her. Then she reread with

extreme care the letter she had found at the Post Office that day in reply to the one she had written Marian

purporting to come from an admirer. Writing slowly and thinking deeply, she answered it. She tried to

imagine that she was Peter Morrison and she tried to say the things in that letter that she thought Peter would

say in the circumstances, because she felt sure that Marian would be entertained by such things as Peter

would say. When she finished, she read it over carefully, and then copied it with equal care on the typewriter,

When she heard Katy's footstep outside her door, she opened it and drew her in, slipping the bolt behind her.

"Now ain't they jist the finest gentlemen?" said Katy. "Cut right off of a piece of the same cloth as your

father. Now some way we must get together enough money to get ye a goodsized rug for under your

worktable, and then ye've got to have two bits of small ones, one for your hearthstone and one for your aisel;

and then ye're ready, colleen, to show what ye can do. I'm so proud of ye when I think of the grand secret it's

keepin' for ye I am; and less and less are gettin' me chances for the salvation of me soul, for every night I'm

asittin' starin' at the magazines ye gave me when I ought to be tellin' me beads and makin' me devotions.

"Any day now," said Linda in a whisper. "And, Katy, you'll be careful? That editor must think that 'Jane

Meredith' is full of years and ripe experience. I probably wouldn't get ten cents, no not even a fornothing

"Junior nothing!" scoffed Katy. "There was not a day of his life that your pa did not spend hours drillin' ye in

things the rest of the girls in your school never heard of. 'Tain't no highschool girl that's written them

articles. It's Alexander Strong speakin' through the medium of his own flesh and blood."

"Why, so it is, Katy!" cried Linda delightedly. "You know, I never thought of that. I have been so egoistical I

"No," said Linda, "they haven't. It seems that the amount of interest the articles evoke is going to decide what

I am to be paid for them, but they certainly couldn't take the recipe and the comments and the sketch for less

than twentyfive or thirty dollars, unless recipes are like poetry. Peter said the other day that if a poet did not

have some other profession to support him, he would starve to death on all he was paid for writing the most

beautiful things that ever are written in all this world. Peter says even an effort to write a poem is a beautiful

"Well, maybe that used to be the truth," said Katy as she started toward the door, "but I have been reading

some things labeled 'poetry' in the magazines of late, and if the holy father knows what they mean, he's even

"Katy," said Linda, "we are dreadful back numbers. We are letting this world progress and roll right on past

us without a struggle. We haven't either one been to a psychoanalyst to find out the color of our auras."

"Now God forbid," said Katy. "I ain't going to have one of them things around me. The colors I'm wearin'

"And mine are going to satisfy me very shortly, now," laughed Linda, "because tomorrow is my big day with

Eileen. Next time we have a minute together, old dear, I'll have started my bank account."

"Right ye are," said Katy, "jist exactly right. You're getting such a great girl it's the proper thing ye should be

"The unfortunate thing about that, Katy, is that l intimated the other day that I would be content with less than

"Now ain't that jist like ye?" said Katy. "I might have known ye would be doing that very thing."

"After I have gone over the accounts," said Linda, "I'll know better what to demand. Now fly to your

cooking, Katy, and let me sit down at this table and see if I can dig out a few dollars of honest coin; but I'm

going to have hard work to keep my eves on the paper with that fireplace before me. Isn't that red and blue

lettering the prettiest thing, Katy, and do you notice that tiny 'P. M.' cut down in the lower lefthand corner

nearly out of sight? That, Katy, stands for 'Peter Morrison,' and one of these days Peter is going to be a large

"It never does," said Katy, "to be makin' up your mind in this world so hard and fast that ye can't change it. In

the days before John Gilman got bewitched out of his senses I did think, barrin' your father, that he was the

finest man the Lord ever made; but I ain't thought so much of him of late as I did before."

"I've studied this Peter," continued Katy, "like your pa used to study things under his microscope. He's the

most comeatable man. He's got such a kind of a questionin' look on his face, and there's a bit of a stoop to

his shoulders like they had been whittled out for carryin' a load, and there's a kind of a whimsy quiverin'

around his lips that makes me heart stand still every time he speaks to me, because I can't be certain whether

he is going to make me laugh or going to make me cry, and when what he's sayin' does come with that little

slow drawl, I can't be just sure whether he's meanin' it or whether he's jist pokin' fun at me. He said the

quarest thing to me the other day when he was here fiddlin' over the makin' of this fireplace. He was standin'

out beside your desert garden and I come aven with him and I says to him: 'Them's the rare plants Miss Linda

and her pa have been goin' to the deserts and the canyons, as long as he lived, to fetch in; and then Miss

Linda went alone, and now the son of Judge Whiting, the biggest lawyer in Los Angeles, has begun goin'

with her. Ain't it the brightest, prettiest place?' I says to him. And he stood there lookin', and he says to me:

'No, Katy, that is a graveyard.' Now what in the name of raison was the man meanin' by that?"

"A graveyard!" she repeated. "Well, if anything could come farther from a graveyard than that spot, I don't

know how it would do it. I haven't the remotest notion what he meant. Why didn't you ask him?"

"Well, the truth is," said Katy, "that I proide myself on being able to kape me mouth shut when I should."

"I'll leave to think over it," said Linda. "At present I have no more idea than you in what respect my desert

garden could resemble a graveyard. Oh! yes, there's one thing I wanted to ask you, Katy. Has Eileen been

"She came in yesterday," answered Katy, "when the hammerin' and sawin' was goin' full blast."

"What I wanted to find out'" said Linda, "was whether she had been here and seen this room or not, because if

she hasn't and she wants to see it, now is her time. After I get things going here and these walls are covered

with drying sketches this room is going to be strictly private. You see that you keep your key where nobody

"It's on a string round me neck this blessed minute," said Katy. "I didn't see her come up here, but ye could be

"Yes, I imagine she did," said Linda. "She would be sufficiently curious that she would come to learn how

"I wonder," she said, "what Eileen thought of that and I wonder if she noticed that little 'P. M.' tucked away

"Sure she did," said Katy. "She has got eyes like a cat. She can see more things in a shorter time than

anybody I ever knew." So that evening at dinner Linda told Eileen that the improvements she had made for

her convenience in the billiard room were finished, and asked her if she would like to see them.

"I can't imagine what you want to stick yourself off up there alone for," said Eileen. "I don't believe I am

sufficiently interested in garret skylights and windows to climb up to look at them. What everybody in the

neighborhood can see is that you have absolutely ruined the looks of the back part of the house."

"Of course! But all you've got to do is go on the cast lawn and take a look at that side and the back end of the

house to see what you have done," said Eileen. "Undoubtedly you've cut the selling price of the house one

thousand, at least. But it's exactly like you not to have thought of what chopping up the roof and the end of

the house as you have done, would make it look like. You have got one of those singletrack minds, Linda,

that can think of only one thing at a time, and you never do think, when you start anything, of what the end is

"Very likely there's a large amount of truth in that," said Linda soberly. "Perhaps I do get an idea and pursue

it to the exclusion of everything else. It's an inheritance from Daddy, this concentrating with all my might on

"What I want to know," said Eileen, "is how in this world, at present wages and cost of material, you're

"I can talk more understandingly about that," said Linda quietly, "day after tomorrow. I'll get home from

school tomorrow as early as I can, and then we'll figure out our financial situation exactly."

When Linda hurried home the next evening, her first word to Katy was to ask if Eileen were there.

"She went downtown this morning and she telephoned me about three sayin' she had an invoitation to go with

a motor party to Pasadena this afternoon, an' she wasn't knowin' whether she could get home the night or

She liked it still less when Eileen came home for a change of clothing the following day, and again went to

"I don't understand this," said Linda, white lipped and tense. "She does not want to see me. She does not

intend to talk business with me if she can possibly help it. She is treating me as if I were a fouryearold

instead of a woman with as much brain as she has. If she appears while I am gone tomorrow and starts away

again, you tell her Come to think of it, you needn't tell her anything; I'll give you a note for her."

It won't be necessary to remind you of our agreement night before last to settle on an allowance from Father's

estate for me. Of course I realize that you are purposely avoiding seeing me, for what reason I can't imagine;

but I give you warning, that if you have been in this house and have read this note, and are not here with your

figures ready to meet me when I get home tomorrow night, I'll take matters into my own hands, and do

exactly what I think best without the slightest reference to what you think about it. If you don't want

something done that you will dislike, even more than you dislike seeing me, you had better heed this

She read it over slowly: "My, that sounds melodramatic!" she commented. "It's even got a threat in it, and it's

a funny thing to threaten my own sister. I don't think that it's a situation that occurs very frequently, but for

that matter I sincerely hope that Eileen isn't the kind of sister that occurs frequently."

Linda went up to her room and tried to settle herself to work, but found that it was impossible to fix her

attention on what she was doing. Her mind jumped from one thing to another in a way that totally prohibited

effective work of any kind. A sudden resolve came into her heart. She would not wait any longer. She would

know for herself just how she was situated financially. She wrote a note to the editor of Everybody's Home,

asking him if it would be convenient to let her know what reception her work was having with his

subscribers, whether he desired her to continue the department in his magazines, and if so, what was the best

offer he could make her for the recipes, the natural history comments accompanying them, and the sketches.

Then she went down to the telephone book and looked up the location of the Consolidated Bank. She decided

that she would stop there on her way from school the next day and ask to be shown the Strong accounts.

While she was meditating these heroic measures the bell rang and Katy admitted John Gilman. Strangely

enough, he was asking for Linda, not for Eileen. At the first glimpse of him Linda knew that something was

wrong; so without any prelude she said abruptly: "What's the matter, John? Don't you know where I Eileen is

"Approximately," he answered. "She has 'phoned me two or three times, but I haven't seen her for three days.

Do you know where she is or exactly why she is keeping away from home as she is?"

"Yes," said Linda, "I do. I told you the other day the time had come when I was going to demand a settlement

of Father's estate and a fixed income. That time came three days ago and I have not seen Eileen since."

They entered the living room. As Linda passed the table, propped against a candlestick on it, she noticed a

"Oh, here will be an explanation," she said. "Here is a note for me. Sit down a minute till I read it."

She seated herself on the arm of a chair, tore open the note, and instantly began reading aloud.

"Pathetic," interpolated Linda, "in consideration of the fact that I am about twice as big as she is. However,

we'll let that go, and focus on the enclosure." She waved a slender slip of paper at Gilman. "I never was

possessed of an article like this before in all my tender young life, but it seems to me that it's a cheque, and I

can't tell you quite how deeply it amuses me. But to return to business, at the present instant I am:

It seems that all the friends I have are particularly insistent on seeing me all at once and all in a rush. I don't

think I ever had quite so many invitations at one time in my life before, and the next two or three days seem

to be going to be equally as full. But I took time to run into the bank and go over things carefully. I find that

after the payment of taxes and insurance and all the household expenses, that by wearing old clothes I have

and making them over I can afford to turn over at least seventyfive dollars a month to you for your clothing

and personal expenses. As I don't know exactly when I can get home, I am enclosing a cheque which is

considerably larger than I had supposed I could make it, and I can only do this by skimping myself; but of

course you are getting such a big girl and beginning to attract attention, so it is only right that you should

have the very best that I can afford to do for you. I am not taking the bill from The Mode into consideration. I

Linda held the letter in one hand, the cheque in the other, and stared questioningly at John Gilman.

"It seems to me," said Gilman, "that a more pertinent question would be, what do you think of it?"

"Rot!" said Linda tersely. "If I were a stenographer in your office I would think that I was making a fairly

good start; but I happen to be the daughter of Alexander Strong living in my own home with my only sister,

who can afford to flit like the flittingest of social butterflies from one party to another as well dressed as, and

better dressed than, the Great General Average. You have known us, John, ever since Eileen sat in the sun to

dry her handmade curls, while I was leaving a piece of my dress on every busk in Multiflores Canyon. Right

Linda started upstairs, so John Gilman followed her. She went to the door of Eileen's suite and opened it.

"Now then," she said, "take a look at what Eileen feels she can afford for herself. You will observe she has

complete and exquisite furnishings and all sorts of feminine accessories on her dressing table. You will

observe that she has fine rugs in her dressing room and bathroom. Let me call your attention to the fact that

Angrily Linda began to open drawers filled with fancy feminine apparel, daintily and neatly folded,

everything in perfect order: gloves, hose, handkerchiefs, ribbons, laces, all in separate compartments She

pointed to the high chiffonier, the top decorated with candlesticks and silverframed pictures. Here the

drawers revealed heaps of embroidered underclothing and silken garments. Then she walked to the closet and

She pushed hangers on their rods, sliding before the perplexed and bewildered man dress after dress of lace

and georgette, walking suits of cloth, street dresses of silk, and pretty afternoon gowns, heavy coats, light

coats, a beautiful evening coat. Linda took this down and held it in front of John Gilman.

"I see things marked in store windows," she said. "Eileen paid not a penny less than three hundred for this

one coat. Look at the rows of shoes, and pumps, and slippers, and what that box is or I don't know."

Linda slid to the light a box screened by the hanging dresses, and with the toe of her shoe lifted the lid,

disclosing a complete smoking outfitcase after case of cigarettes. Linda dropped the lid and shoved the box

"That is the way things go in this world," she said quietly. "Whenever you lose your temper, you always do

something you didn't intend to do when you started. I didn't know that, and I wouldn't have shown it to you

purposely if I had known it; but it doesn't alter the fact that you should know it. If you did know it no harm's

done but if you didn't know it, you shouldn't be allowed to marry Eileen without knowing as much about her

as you did about Marian, and there was nothing about Marian that you didn't know. I am sorry for that, but

since I have started this I am going through with it. Now give me just one minute more."

Then she went down the hall, threw open the door to her room, and walking in said: "You have seen Eileen's

surroundings; now take a look at mine. There's my bed; there's my dresser and toilet articles; and this is my

She opened the closet door and exhibited a pair of overalls in which she watered her desert garden. Next

ranged her khaki breeches and felt hat. Then hung the old serge school dress, beside it the extra skirt and

orange blouse. The stack of underclothing on the shelves was pitifully small, visibly dilapidated. Two or

three outgrown gingham dresses hung forlornly on the opposite wall. Linda stood tall and straight before

"What I have on and one other waist constitute my wardrobe," she said, "and I told Eileen where to get this

"I don't understand," he said slowly. "If that isn't the dress I saw Eileen send up for herself, I'm badly

mistaken. It was the Saturday we went to Riverside. It surely is the very dress."

"That may be," she said. "The one time she ever has any respect for me is in a question of taste. She will

agree that I know when colors are right and a thing is artistic. Now then, John, you are the administrator of

my father's estate; you have seen what you have seen. What are you going to do about it?"

"Linda," he said quietly, "what my heart might prompt me to do in consideration of the fact that I am engaged

to marry Eileen, and what my legal sense tells me I must do as executor of your father's wishes, are different

propositions. I am going to do exactly what you tell me to. What you have shown me, and what I'd have

"John," she said at last, "I am feeling depressed over what I have just done. I am not sure that in losing my

temper and bringing you up here I have played the game fairly. You don't need to do anything. I'll manage

my affairs with Eileen myself. But I'll tell you before you go, that you needn't practice any subterfuges. When

she reaches the point where she is ready to come home, I'll tell her that you were here, and what you have

Slowly they walked down the ha]l together. At the head of the stairs Linda took the cheque that she carried

and tore it into bits. Stepping across the hall, she let the little heap slowly flutter to the rug in front of Eileen's

door. Then she went back to her room and left John Gilman to his own reflections.

The first time Linda entered the kitchen after her interview with Gilman, Katy asked in deep concern, "Now

"Doing the baby act, Katy," confessed Linda. "Disgracing myself. Losing my temper. I wish I could bring

myself to the place where I would think half a dozen times before I do a thing once."

"Now look here," said Katy, beginning to bristle, "ain't it the truth that ye have thought for four years before

"Quite so," said Linda. "But since I am the daughter of the finest gentleman I ever knew, I should not do

hasty, regrettable things. On the livingroom table I found a note sweeter than honey, and it contained a

cheque for me that wouldn't pay Eileen's bills for lunches, candy, and theaters for a month; so in undue heat I

reduced it to bits and decorated the rug before her door. But before that, Katy, I led my guardian into the

room, and showed him everything. I meant to tell him that, since he had neglected me for four years, he could

see that I had justice now, but when I'd personally conducted him from Eileen's room to mine, and when I

took a good look at him there was something on his face, Katy, that I couldn't endure. So I told him to leave it

to me; that I would tell Eileen myself what I had done, and so I will. But I am sorry I did it, Katy; I am

awfully sorry. You always told me to keep my temper and I lost it completely. From now on I certainly will

try to behave myself more like a woman than a spoiled child. Now give me a dust cloth and brushes. I am

almost through with my job in the library and I want to finish, because I shall be forced to use the money

Linda went to the library and began work, efficiently, carefully, yet with a precise rapidity habitual to her.

Down the long line of heavy technical books, she came to the end of the shelf. Three books from the end she

noticed a difference in the wall behind the shelf. Hastily removing the other two volumes, she disclosed a

small locked door having a scrap of paper protruding from the edge which she pulled out and upon which she

In the event of my passing, should anyone move these books and find this door, these lines are to inform him

that it is to remain untouched. The key to it is in my safetydeposit vault at the Consolidated Bank. The Bank

Linda fixed the paper back exactly as she had found it. She stood looking at the door a long time, then she

carefully wiped it, the wall around it, and the shelf. Going to another shelf, she picked out the books that had

been written by her father and, beginning at the end of the shelf, she ranged them in a row until they

completely covered the opening. Then she finished filling the shelf with other books that she meant to keep,

but her brain was working, milling over and over the question of what that little compartment contained and

when it was to be opened and whether John Gilman knew about it, and whether the Consolidated Bank would

remember the day specified, and whether it would mean anything important to her.

She carried the dusters back to Katy, and going to her room, concentrated resolutely upon her work; but she

Was unable to do anything constructive. Her routine lessons she could prepare, but she could not even sketch

a wild rose accurately. Finally she laid down her pencil, washed her brushes, put away her material, and

locking her door, slipped the key into her pocket. Going down to the garage she climbed into the Bear Cat

and headed straight for Peter Morrison. She drove into his location and blew the horn. Peter stepped from the

garage, and seeing her, started in her direction. Linda sprang down and hurried toward him. He looked at her

"Sort of restless," said Linda. "Couldn't evolve a single new idea with which to enliven the gay annals of

English literature and Greek history. A personal history seems infinitely more insistent and unusual. I ran

away from my lessons, and my work, and came to you, Peter, because I had a feeling that there was

"I like your line of thought, Linda," he said quietly. "It greatly appeals to me. Any time an ancient and

patriarchal literary man named Peter Morrison can serve as a rock upon which a young thing can rest, why

He led the way to the garage. His worktable and the cement floor around it were littered with sheets of

"I'll have to assemble them first," said Peter, getting down on his knees and beginning to pick them up.

Linda sat on a packing case and watched him. Already she felt comforted. Of course Peter was a rock, of

course anyone could trust him, and of course if the tempest of life beat upon her too strongly she could

"Gad!" he said slowly. "Don't talk about me being a rock! Rocks are stolid, stodgy unresponsive things. I

thought I was struggling with one of the biggest political problems of the day from an economic and

psychological standpoint. If I'd had sense enough to realize that it was a bridge I was building, I might have

done the thing with some imagination and subtlety. If you want a rock and you say I am a rock, a rock I'll be,

Linda. But I know what you are, and what you will be to me when we really become the kind of friends we

"I wonder now," said Linda, "if you are going to say that I could be any such lovely thing on the landscape as

"No," said Peter slowly, "nothing so prosaic. Bridges are common in this world. You are going to be

something uncommon. History records the experiences of but one man who has seen a flame in the open. I

am a second Moses and you are going to be my burning bush. I intended to read this article to you."

Peter massed the sheets, straightened them on the desk, and deliberately ripped them across several times.

"Why, Peter!" she cried in a shocked voice. "That is perfectly inexcusable. There are hours and hours of work

"Simple case of mechanism," said Peter, reducing the bits to smaller size and dropping them into the empty

nail keg that served as his wastebasket. "A lifeless thing without a soul, mere clockwork. I have got the idea

now. I am to build a bridge and make a road. Every way I look I can see a goldenflame tongue of inspiration

Linda rose and walked to the Bear Cat. Peter climbed in and sat beside her. Linda laid her hands on the

steering wheel and started the car. She ran it down to the highway and chose a level road leading straight

down the valley through cultivated country. In all the world there was nothing to equal the panorama that she

spread before Peter that evening. She drove the Bear Cat past orchards, hundreds of acres of orchards of

waxen green leaves and waxen white bloom of orange, grapefruit, and lemon. She took him where seas of

pink outlined peach orchards, and other seas the more delicate tint of the apricots. She glided down avenues

lined with palm and eucalyptus, pepper and olive, and through unbroken rows, extending for miles, of roses,

long stretches of white, again a stretch of pink, then salmon, yellow, and red. Nowhere in all the world are

there to be found so many acres of orchard bloom and so many miles of treelined, rosedecorated roadway

as in southern California. She sent the little car through the evening until she felt that it was time to go home,

and when at last she stopped where they had started, she realized that neither she nor Peter had spoken one

word. As he stepped from the car she leaned toward him and reached out her hand.

Peter took the hand she extended and held it one minute in both his own. Then very gently he straightened it

out in the palm of one of his hands and with the other hand turned back the fingers and laid his lips to the

"Thank you, Linda, for the flame," he said, and turning abruptly, he went toward his workroom.

Stopping for a bite to eat in the kitchen, Linda went back to her room. She sat down at the table and picking

up her pencil, began to work, and found that she could work. Every stroke came true and strong. Every idea

seemed original and unusual. Quite as late as a light ever had shone in her window, it shone that night, the

last thing she did being to write another anonymous letter to Marian, and when she reread it Linda realized

that it was an appealing letter. She thought it certainly would comfort Marian and surely would make her feel

that someone worth while was interested in her and in her work. She loved some of the whimsical little

touches she had put into it, and she wondered if she had made it so much like Peter Morrison that it would be

suggestive of him to Marian. She knew that she had no right to do that and had no such intention. She merely

After school the next day Linda reported that she had finished going through the books and was ready to have

them taken. Then, after a few minutes of deep thought, she made her way to the Consolidated Bank. At the

window of the paying teller she explained that she wished to see the person connected with the bank who had

charge of the safetydeposit boxes and who looked after the accounts pertaining to the estate of Alexander

"I'll take you to the office of the president," he said. "He and Doctor Strong were very warm friends. You can

Before she realized what was happening, Linda found herself in an office that was all mahogany and marble.

At a huge desk stacked with papers sat a man, considerably older than her father. Linda remembered to have

seen him frequently in their home, in her father's car, and she recalled one fishing expedition to the Tulare

"Of course you have forgotten me, Mr. Worthington," she said as she approached his desk. "I have grown

"You exact replica of Alexander Strong," he said laughingly, "I couldn't forget you any more than I could

forget your father. That fine fishing trip where you proved such a grand little scout is bright in my memory as

Linda sat down and told him that she was dissatisfied with the manner in which her father's estate was being

He listened very carefully to all she had to say, then he pressed a button and gave a few words of instruction

to the clerk who answered it. When several ledgers and account books were laid before him, with practiced

hand he turned to what he wanted. The records were not complicated. They covered a period of four years.

They showed exactly what monies had been paid into the bank for the estate. They showed what royalties had

been paid on the books. Linda sat beside him and watched his pencil running up and down columns, setting

down a list of items, and making everything plain. Paid cheques for household expenses I and drygoods bills

were all recorded and deducted. With narrow, alert eyes, Linda was watching, and her brain was keenly alive.

As she realized the discrepancy between the annual revenue from the estate and the totaling of the expenses,

she had an inspiration. Something she never before had thought of occurred to her. She looked the banker in

the eye and said very quietly: "And now, since she is my sister and I am going to be of age very shortly and

these things must all be gone into and opened up, would it be out of place for me to ask you this afternoon to

"No?" said Linda. "But since Father and Mother went out at the same time and there was no will and the

property would be legally divided equally between us upon my coming of age, would my sister be entitled to

"No," said Linda. "At least none that I know of. Mother had I some relatives in San Francisco who were very

wealthy people, but they never came to see us and we never went there. I know nothing about them. I never

"Mr. Worthington," she said, "the situation is slightly peculiar. My guardian, John Gilman, is engaged to

marry my sister Eileen. She is a beautiful girl, as you no doubt recall, and he is very much in love with her.

Undoubtedly she has been able, at least recently, to manage affairs very much in her own way. She is more

than four years my senior, and has always had charge of the household accounts and the handling of the bank

accounts. Since there is such a wide discrepancy between the returns from the property and the expenses that

these books show, I am forced .o the conclusion that there must be upon your books, or the books of some

other bank in the city, a private account in Eileen's name or in the name of the Strong estate."

"That I can very easily ascertain," said Mr. Worthington, reaching again toward the button on his desk. A few

minutes later the report came that there was a private account in the name of Miss Eileen Strong. Again Linda

"Is there anything I can do," she inquired, "to prevent that account from being changed or drawn out previous

"Yes," he said at last. "If you are dissatisfied, if you feel that you have reason to believe that money rightfully

belonging to you is being diverted to other channels, you have the right to issue an injunction against the

bank, ordering it not to pay out any further money on any account nor to honor any cheques drawn by Miss

Strong until the settlement of the estate. Ask your guardian to execute and deliver such an injunction, or

merely ask him, as your guardian and the administrator of the estate, to give the bank a written order to that

"But because he is engaged to Eileen, I told him I would not bring him into this matter," said Linda. "I told

"Well, how long is it until this coming birthday of yours?" inquired Mr. Worthington.

For a time the financier sat in deep thought, then he looked at Linda. It was a keen, searching look. It went to

the depths of her eyes; it included her face and hair; it included the folds of her dress, the cut of her shoe, and

"I see the circumstances very clearly," he said. "I sympathize with your position. Having known your father

and being well acquainted with your guardian, would you be satisfied if I should take the responsibility of

issuing to the clerks an order not to allow anything to be drawn from the private account until the settlement

"It might be," said Mr. Worthington, "managing matters i that way, that no one outside of ourselves need ever

know of il Should your sister not draw on the private account in the mean time, she would be free to draw

household cheques on the monthly income and if in the settlement of the estate she turns in this private

account or accounts, she need never know of the restriction concerning this fund."

"It's not conceivable," she said, "that Eileen should be enriching herself at my expense. I can't imagine her

being dishonest in money affairs, and yet I can recall scarcely a circumstance in life in which Eileen has ever

hesitated to be dishonest when a lie served her purpose better than the truth. Anyway, matters are safe now."

The next day the books were taken and a cheque for their value was waiting for Linda when she reached

home. She cashed this cheque and went straight to Peter Morrison for his estimate of the expenses for the

"You wouldn't accept this little addition to your study as a gift from Henry and me?" he asked lightly. "It

"I could accept stones that Henry Anderson had gathered from the mountains and canyons, and I could accept

a verse carved on stone, and be delighted with the gift; but I couldn't accept hours of day labor at the present

Peter did not have the bill, but he had memoranda, and when Linda paid him she reflected that the current

For two evenings as Linda returned from school and went to her room she glanced down the hall and smiled

that she knew Eileen was either in her room or had been there. She did not meet her sister until dinnertime.

She was prepared to watch Eileen, to study her closely. She was not prepared to admire her, but in her heart

she almost did that very thing. Eileen had practiced subterfuges so long, she was so accomplished, that it

would have taken an expert to distinguish reality from subterfuge. She entered the dining room humming a

gay tune. She was carefully dressed and appealingly beautiful. She blew a kiss to Linda and waved gaily to

"I was rather afraid," she said lightly, "that I might find you two in mourning when I got back. I never stayed

so long before, did I? Seemed as if every friend I had made special demand on my time all at once. Hope you

"Oh, no," said Linda quietly. "Being away at school all day, of course I wouldn't know whether you were at

home or not, and I have grown so accustomed to spending my evenings alone that I don't rely on you for

"In other words," said Eileen, "it doesn't make any difference to you where I am."

"Not so far as enjoying your company is concerned," said Linda. "Otherwise, of course it makes a difference.

"Oh, I always have a happy time," answered Eileen lightly. "I certainly have the best friends."

At the close of the meal Linda sat waiting. Eileen gave Katy instructions to have things ready for a midnight

lunch for her and John Gilman and then, humming her tune again, she left the dining room and went upstairs.

"Now or never," she said at last. "I have no business to let her meet John until I have recovered my

So she followed Eileen up the stairway. She tapped at the door, and without waiting to hear whether she was

invited or not, opened it and stepped inside. Eileen was sitting before the window, a big box of candy beside

Evidently she intended to keep her temper in case the coming interview threatened to become painful.

"I was half expecting you," she said, "you silly hothead. I found the cheque I wrote you when I got home this

afternoon. That was a foolish thing to do. Why did you tear it up? If it were too large or if it were not enough

why didn't you use it and ask for another? Because I had to be away that was merely to leave you something

Then Linda did the most disconcerting thing possible. In her effort at selfcontrol she went too far. She

merely folded her hands in her lap and sat looking straight at Eileen without saying one word. It did not show

much on the surface, but Eileen really had a conscience, she really had a soul; Linda's eyes, resting rather

speculatively on her, were honest eyes, and Eileen knew what she knew. She flushed and fidgeted, and at last

she broke out impatiently: "Oh, for goodness' sake, Linda, don't play 'Patienceonamonument.' Speak up

and say what it is that you want. If that cheque was not big enough, what will satisfy you?"

"Come to think of it," said Linda quietly, "I can get along with what I have for the short time until the legal

settlement of our interests is due. You needn't bother any more about a cheque."

Eileen was surprised and her face showed it; and she was also relieved. That too her face showed.

"I always knew," she said lightly, "that I had a little sister with a remarkably level head and good common

sense. I am glad that you recognize the awful inflation of prices during the war period, and how I have had to

skimp and scheme and save in order to make ends meet and to keep us going on Papa's meager income."

All Linda's good resolutions vanished. She was under strong nervous tension. It irritated her to have Eileen

constantly referring to their monetary affairs as if they were practically paupers, as if their father's life had

been a financial failure, as if he had not been able to realize from achievements recognized around the world

"Oh, good Lord!" she said shortly. "Bluff the rest of the world like a professional, Eileen, but why try it with

me? You're right about my having common sense. I'll admit that I am using it now. I will be of age in a few

days, and then we'll take John Gilman and go to the Consolidated Bank, and if it suits your convenience to be

absent for four or five days at that period, I'll take John Gilman and we'll go together."

Eileen was amazed. The receding color in her cheeks left the rouge on them a ghastly, garish thing.

"Well, I won't do anything of the sort," she said hotly, "and neither will John Gilman."

"Unfortunately for you," answered Linda, "John Gilman is my guardian, not yours. He'll be forced to do what

the law says he must, and what common decency tells him he must, no matter what his personal feelings are;

and I might as well tell you that your absence has done you no good. You'd far better have come home, as

you agreed to, and gone over the books and made me a decent allowance, because in your absence John came

"Why, yes," said Linda. "Was it anything unusual? Hasn't he been coming here ever since I can remember?

Evidently you didn't keep him as well posted this time as you usually do. He came here and asked for me."

"And I suppose," said Eileen, an ugly red beginning to rush into her white cheeks, "that you took pains to

"I am very much afraid," said Linda, "that you are right. You have made things uncomfortable for me ever

since I can remember, for I can't remember the time when you were not finding fault with me, putting me in

the wrong and getting me criticized and punished if you possibly could. It was a fair understanding that you

should be here, and you were not, and I was seeing red about it; and just as John came in I found your note in

"Nothing in the wording of it, no," said Linda, "but there was everything in the intention back of it. Because

you did not live up to your tacit agreement, and because I had been on high tension for two or three days, I

lost my temper completely. I brought John Gilman up here and showed him the suite of rooms in which you

have done for yourself, for four years. I gave him rather a thorough inventory of your dressing table and

drawers, and then I opened the closet door and called his attention to the number and the quality of the

garments hanging there. The box underneath them I thought was a shoe box, but it didn't prove to be exactly

that; and for that I want to tell you, as I have already told John, I am sorry. I wouldn't have done that if I had

"Not quite," said Linda. "When I finished with your room, I took him back and showed him mine in even

greater detail than I showed him yours. I thought the contrast would be more enlightening than anything

"And I suppose you realize," said Eileen bitterly, "that you lost me John Gilman when you did it."

"I?" said Linda. "I lost you John Gilman when I did it? But I didn't do it. You did it. You have been busy for

four years doing it. If you hadn't done it, it wouldn't have been there for me to show him. I can't see that this

is profitable. Certainly it's the most distressing thing that ever has occurred for me. But I didn't feel that I

could let you meet John Gilman tonight without telling you what he knows. If you have any way to square

your conscience and cleanse your soul before you meet him, you had better do it, for he's a mighty fine man

and if you lose him you will have lost the best chance that is likely ever to come to you."

Linda sat studying Eileen. She saw the gallant effort she was making to keep her selfpossession, to think

with her accustomed rapidity, to strike upon some scheme whereby she could square herself. She rose and

"What you'll say to John I haven't the faintest notion," she said. "I told him very little. I just showed him."

Then she went out and closed the door after her. At the foot of the stairs she met Katy admitting Gilman.

Without any preliminaries she said: "I repeat, John, that I'm sorry for what happened the other day. I have just

come from Eileen. She will be down as soon as Katy tells her you're here, no doubt. I have done what I told

you I would. She knows what I showed you so you needn't employ any subterfuges. You can be frank and

Linda went to her work. She decided that she would gauge what happened by the length of time John stayed.

If he remained only a few minutes it would indicate that there had been a rupture. If he stayed as long as he

At twelve o'clock Linda laid her pencils in the box, washed the brushes, and went down the back stairs to the

ice chest for a glass of milk. The living room was still lighted and Linda thought Eileen's laugh quite as gay

as she ever had heard it. Linda closed her lips very tight and slowly climbed the stairs. When she entered her

room she walked up to the mirror and stared at herself in the glass for a long time, and then of herself she

Just as Linda was most deeply absorbed with her own concerns there came a letter from Marian which Linda

Life is so busy up San Francisco way that it makes Lilac Valley look in retrospection like a peaceful sunset

But I want you to have the consolation and the comfort of knowing that I have found at least two friends that

I hope will endure. One is a woman who has a room across the hall from mine in my apartment house. She is

a newspaper woman and life is very full for her, but it is filled with such intensely interesting things that I

almost regret having made my life work anything so prosaic as inanimate houses; but then it's my dream to

enliven each house I plan with at least the spirit of home. This womanher name is Dana Meadeenlivens

every hour of her working day with something concerning the welfare of humanity. She is a beautiful woman

in her soul, so extremely beautiful that I can't at this minute write you a detailed description of her hair and

her eyes and her complexion, because this nice, big, friendly light that radiates from her so lights her up and

transfigures her that everyone says how beautiful she is, and yet I have a vague recollection that her nose is

what you would call a "beak," and I am afraid her cheek bones are too high for good proportion, and I know

that her hair is not always so carefully dressed as it should be, but what is the difference when the hair is

crowned with a halo? I can't swear to any of these things; they're sketchy impressions. The only thing I am

absolutely sure about is the inner light that shines to an unbelievable degree. I wish she had more time and I

wish I had more time and that she and I might become such friends as you and I are. I can't tell you, dear,

how much I think of you. It seems to me that you're running a sort of undercurrent in my thoughts all day

You will hardly credit it, Linda, but a few days ago I drove a car through the thickest traffic, up a steep hill,

and round a curve. I did it, but practically collapsed when it was over. The why of it was this: I think I told

you before that in the offices of Nicholson and Snow there is a man who is an understanding person. He is the

junior partner and his name is Eugene Snow. I happened to arrive at his desk the day I came for my

instructions and to make my plans for entering their contest. He was very kind to me and went out of his way

to smooth out the rough places. Ever since, he makes a point of coming to me and talking a few minutes

when I am at the office or when he passes me on my way to the drafting rooms where I take my lessons. The

day I mention I had worked late and hard the night before. I had done the last possible thing to the plans for

my dream house. At the last minute, getting it all on paper, working at the specifications, at which you know

I am wobbly, was nervous business; and when I came from the desk after having turned in my plans, perhaps

I showed fatigue. Anyway, he said to me that his car was below. He said also that he was a lonely person,

having lost his wife two years ago, and not being able very frequently to see his little daughter who is in the

care of her grandmother, there were times when he was hungry for the companionship he had lost. He asked

me if I would go with him for a drive and I told him that I would. I am rather stunned yet over what

happened. The runabout he led me to was greatly like yours, and, Linda, he stopped at a florist's and came out

with an armload of bloomexquisite lavender and pale pink and faint yellow and waxen whitethe most

enticing armload of spring. For one minute I truly experienced a thrill. I thought he was going to give that

mass of flowers to me, but he did not. He merely laid it across my lap and said: "Edith adored the flowers

from bulbs. I never see such bloom that my heart does not ache with a keen, angry ache to think that she

should be taken from the world, and the beauty that she so loved, so early and so ruthlessly. We'll take her

So, Linda dear, I sat there and looked at color and drank in fragrance, and we whirled through the city and

away to a cemetery on a beautiful hill, and filled a vase inside the gates of a mausoleum with these appealing

flowers. Then we sat down, and a man with a hurt heart told me about his hurt, and what an effort he was

making to get through the world as the woman he loved would have had him; and before I knew what I was

doing, Linda, I told him the tellable part of my own hurts. I even lifted my turban and bowed my white head

before him. This hurtit was one of the inexorable things that come to people in this worldI could talk

about. That deeper hurt, which has put a scar that never will be effaced on my soul, of course I could not tell

him about. But when we went back to the car he said to me that he would help me to get back into the

sunlight. He said the first thing I must do to regain selfconfidence was to begin driving again. I told him I

could not, but he said I must, and made me take the driver's seat of a car I had never seen and take the

steering wheel of a make of machine I had never driven, and tackle two or three serious problems for a driver.

I did it all right, Linda, because I couldn't allow myself to fail the kind of a man Mr. Snow is, when he was

truly trying to help me, but in the depths of my heart I am afraid I am a coward forever, for there is a ghastly

illness takes possession of me as I write these details to you. But anyway, put a red mark on your calendar

beside the date on which you get this letter, and joyfully say to yourself that Marian has found two real,

In a week or ten days I shall know about the contest. If 1: win, as I really have a sneaking hope that I shall,

since I have condensed the best of two dozen houses into one and exhausted my imagination on my dream

home, I will surely telegraph, and you can make it a day of jubilee. If I fail, I will try to find out where my

dream was not true and what can be done to make it materialize properly; but between us, Linda girl, I am

going to be dreadfully disappointed. I could use the material value that prize represents. I could start my life

work which I hope to do in Lilac Valley on the prestige and the background that it would give me. I don't

know, Linda, whether you ever learned to pray or not, but I have, and it's a thing that helps when the black

shadow comes, when you reach the land of "benefits forgot and friends remembered not."

And this reminds me that I should not write to my very dearest friend who has her own problems and make

her heart sad with mine; so to the joyful news of my two friends add a third, Linda, for I am going to tell you

a secret because it will make you happy. Since I have been in San Francisco some man, who for a reason of

his own does not tell me his name, has been writing me extremely attractive letters. I have had several of

them and I can't tell you, Linda, what they mean to me or how they help me. There is a touch of whimsy

about them. I can't as yet connect them with anybody I ever met, but to me they are taking the place of a little

lunch on the bread of life. They are such real, such vivid, such alive letters from such a real person that I have

been doing the very foolish and romantic thing of answering them as my heart dictates and signing my own

name to them, which on the surface looks unwise when the man in the case keeps his identity in the

background; but since he knows me and knows my name it seems useless to do anything else: and answer

these letters I shall and must; because every one of them is to me a strong light thrown on John Gilman.

Every time one of these letters comes to me I have the feeling that I would like to reach out through space

and pick up the man who is writing them and dangle him before Eileen and say to her: "Take HIM. I dare you

to take HIM." And my confidence, Linda, is positively supreme that she could not do it.

You know, between us, Linda, we regarded Eileen as a rare creature, a kind of exotic thing, made to be kept

in a glass house with tempered air and warmed water; but as I go about the city and at times amuse myself at

concerts and theaters, I am rather dazed to tell you, honey, that the world is chock full of Eileens. On the

streets, in the stores, everywhere I go, sometimes half a dozen times in a day I say to myself: "There goes

Eileen." I haven't a doubt that Eileen has a heart, if it has not become so calloused that nobody could ever

reach it, and I suspect she has a soul, but the more I see of her kind the more I feel that John Gilman may

With dearest love, be sure to remember me to Katherine O'Donovan. Hug her tight and give her my

This was the letter that Linda read once, then she read it again and then she read it a third time, and after that

she lost count and reread it whenever she was not busy doing something else, for it was a letter that was the

next thing to laying hands upon Marian. The part of the letter concerning the unknown man who was writing

"That is the best thing I ever did in my life," she said in self commendation. "It's doing more than I hoped it

would. It's giving Marian something to think about. It's giving her an interest in life. It's distracting her

attention. Without saying a word about John Gilman it is making her see for herself the weak spots in him

through the very subtle method of calling her attention to the strength that may lie in another man. For once

in your life, Linda, you have done something strictly worth while. The thing for you to do is to keep it up, and

in order to keep it up, to make each letter fresh and original, you will have to do a good deal of sticking

around Peter Morrison's location and absorbing rather thoroughly the things he says. Peter doesn't know he is

writing those letters but he is in them till it's a wonder Marian does not hear him drawl and see the imps

twisting his lips as she reads them. Before I write another single one I'll go see Peter. Maybe he will have that

article written. I'll take a pencil, and as he reads I'll jot down the salient points and then I'll come home and

work out a head and tail piece for him to send in with it, and in that way I'll ease my soul about the skylight

So Linda took pad and pencils, raided Katy for everything she could find that was temptingly edible, climbed

into the Bear Cat, and went to see Peter as frankly as she would have crossed the lawn to visit Marian. He

was not in the garage when she stopped her car before it, but the workmen told her that he had strolled up the

mountain and that probably he would return soon. Learning that he had been gone but a short time Linda set

the Bear Cat squalling at the top of its voice. Then she took possession of the garage, and clearing Peter's

worktable spread upon it the food she had brought, and then started out to find some flowers for decorations.

When Peter came upon the scene he found Linda, flushed and brilliant eyed, holding before him a big

bouquet of alder bloom, the last of the lilacs she had found in a cool, shaded place, pink filaree, blue lupin,

and white mahogany panicles. "Peter," she cried. "you can't guess what I have been doing!"

"No, it isn't," said Linda, "because I am capable of two processes at once. The work of my hands is visible;

with it I am going to decorate your table. You won't have to go down to the restaurant for your supper tonight

because I have brought my supper up to share with you, and after we finish, you're going to read me your

article as you have rewritten it. I am going to decorate it and we are going to make a hit with it that will be at

least a start on the road to greater fame. What you see is material. You can pick it up, smell it, admire it and

eat it. But what I have truly been doing is setting Spanish iris for yards down one side of the bed of your

stream. When I left it was a foot and a half high Peter, and every blue that the sky ever knew in its loveliest

moments, and a yellow that is the concentrated essence of the best gold from the heart of California. Oh,

Peter, there is enchantment in the way I set it. There are irregular deep beds, and there are straggly places

where there are only one or two in a ragged streak, and then it runs along the edge in a fringy rim, and then it

stretches out in a marshy place that is going to have some other wild things, arrowheads, and orchids, and

maybe a bunch of paint brush on a high, dry spot near by. I wish you could see it!"

Peter looked at Linda reflectively and then he told her that he could see it. He fold her that he adored it, that

he was crazy about her straggly continuity and her fringy border, but there was not one word of truth in what

he said, because what he saw was a slender thing, willowy, graceful; roughened wavy black hair hanging half

her length in heavy braids, dark eyes and bright cheeks, a vivid red line of mouth, and a bright brown line of

freckles bridging a prominent and aristocratic nose. What he was seeing was a soul, a young thing, a thing he

coveted with every nerve and fiber of his being. And while he glibly humored her in her vision of decorating

his brook, in his own consciousness he was saying to himself: "Is there any reason why I should not try for

And then he answered himself. "There is no reason in your life. There is nothing ugly that could offend her or

hurt her. The reason, the real reason, probably lies in the fact that if she were thinking of caring for anyone it

would be for that attractive young schoolmate she brought up here for me to exercise my wits upon. It is very

likely that she regards me in the light of a grandfatherly person to whom she can come with her joys or her

So Peter asked if the irises crossed the brook and ran down both sides. Linda sat on a packing case and

concentrated on the iris, and finally she announced that they did. She informed him that his place was going

to bc natural, that Nature evolved things in her own way. She did not grow irises down one side of a brook

and arrowheads down the other. They waded across and flew across and visited back and forth, riding the

water or the wind or the down of a bee or the tail of a cow. As she served the supper she had brought she very

gravely informed him that there would be iris on both sides of his brook, and cress and miners' lettuce under

the bridge; and she knew exactly where the wild clematis grew that would whiten his embankment after his

"It may not scorch you, Peter," she said gravely, "but you must look out for the Missus and the little things. I

haven't definitely decided on her yet, but she looks a good deal like Mary Louise Whiting to mc. I saw her the

other day. She came to school after Donald. I liked her looks so well that I said to myself: 'Everybody talks

about how fine she is. I shouldn't wonder if I had better save her for Peter'; but if I decide to, you should act

that poison stuff out, because it's sure as shooting to attack any one with the soft, delicate skin that goes with

"Oh, let's leave it in," said Peter, "and dispense with the golden head. By the time you get that stream planted

as you're planning, I'll have become so accustomed to a dark head bobbing up and down beside it that I won't

take kindly to a sorrel top." "That is positively sacrilegious," said Linda, lifting her hands to her rough black

hair. "Never in my life saw anything lovelier than the rich gold on Louise Whiting's bare head as she bent to

release her brakes and start her car. A black head looks like a cinder bed beside it; and only think what a

When they had finished their supper Linda gathered up the remnants and put them in the car, then she laid a

"Now I want to hear that article," she said. "I knew you would do it over the minute I was gone, and I knew

"Mostly 'what'," laughed Linda. "I merely knew. The workmen are gone and everything is quiet now, Peter.

Begin. I am crazy to get the particular angle from which you 'make the world safe for democracy.' John used

to call our attention to your articles during the war. He said we had not sent another man to France who could

write as humanely and as interestingly as you did. I wish I had kept those articles; because I didn't get

anything from them to compare with what I can get since I have a slight acquaintance with the procession that

marches around your mouth. Peter, you will have to watch that mouth of yours. It's an awfully betraying

feature. So long as it's occupied with politics and the fads and the foibles and the sins and the foolishness and

the extravagances of humanity, it's all very well. But if you ever get in trouble or if ever your heart hurts, or

you get mad enough to kill somebody, that mouth of yours is going to be a most awfully revealing feature,

Peter. You will have hard work to settle it down into hardandfast noncommittal lines."

"Huhumph!" said Linda, shaking her head vigorously. When I specialize I use a pin and a microscope and

go right to the root of matters as I was taught. This is superficial. I am extemporizing now."

"Well, if this is extemporizing," said Peter, "God help my soul if you ever go at me with a pin and a

"Oh, but I won't!" cried Linda. "It wouldn't be kind to pin your friends on a setting board and use a

microscope on them. You might see things that were strictly private. You might see things they wouldn't

want you to see. They might not be your friends any more if you did that. When I make a friend I just take

"Yes, Linda," said Peter soberly. "Put me to any test you can think of if you want proof."

"But I don't believe in PROVING friends, either," said Linda. "I believe in nurturing them. I would set a

friend in my garden and water his feet and turn the sunshine on him and tell him to stay there and grow. I

might fertilize him, I might prune him, and I might use insecticide on him. I might spray him with rather

stringent solutions, but I give you my word I would not test him. If he flourished under my care I would

know it, and if he did not I would know it, and that would be all I would want to know. I have watched

Daddy search for the seat of nervous disorders, and sometimes he had to probe very deep to find what

developed nerves unduly but he didn't ever do any picking and raveling and fringing at the soul of a human

being merely for the sake of finding out what it was made of; and everyone says I am like him."

Peter opened a packing case, picked out a sheaf of papers, and sitting opposite Linda, began to read. He was

dumbfounded to find that he, a man who had read and talked extemporaneously before great bodies of

learned men, should have cold feet and shaking hands and a hammering heart because he was trying to read

an article on America for Americans before a highschool Junior. But presently, as the theme engrossed him,

he forgot the vision of Linda interesting herself in his homemaking, and saw instead a vision of his country

threatened on one side by the red menace of the Bolshevik, on the other by the yellow menace of the Jap, and

yet on another by the treachery of the Mexican and the slowly uprising might of the black man, and presently

he was thundering his bestconsidered arguments at Linda until she imperceptibly drew back from him on

the packing case, and with parted lips and wide eyes she listened in utter absorption. She gazed at a

transformed Peter with aroused eyes and a white light of patriotism on his forehead, and a conception even

keener than anything that the war had brought her young soul was burning in her heart of what a man means

when he tries to express his feeling concerning the land of his birth. Presently, without realizing what she was

doing, she reached for her pad and pencils and rapidly began sketching a stretch of peaceful countryside over

which a coming storm of gigantic proportions was gathering. Fired by Peter's article, the touch of genius in

Linda's soul became creative and she fashioned huge storm clouds wind driven, that floated in such a manner

as to bring the merest suggestion of menacing faces, black faces, yellow faces, brown faces, and under the

flash of lightning, just at the obscuring of the sun, a huge, evil, leering red face. She swept a stroke across her

sheet and below this she began again, sketching the same stretch of country she had pictured above, strolling

in cultivated fields, dotting it with white cities, connecting it with smooth roadways, sweeping the sky with

giant planes. At one side, winging in from the glow of morning, she drew in the strongwinged flight of a

flock of sea swallows, peacefully homing toward the fardistant ocean. She was utterly unaware when Peter

stopped reading. Absorbed, she bent over her work. When she had finished she looked up.

"Now I'll take this home," she said. "I can't do well on color with pencils. You hold that article till I have time

to put this on watercolor paper and touch it up a bit here and there, and I believe it will be worthy of starting

"Yes, 'little' is good," scoffed Linda, rising to very nearly his height and reaching for the lunch basket. "

'Little' is good, Peter. If I could do what I like to myself I would get in some kind of a press and squash down

"Oh, Lord!" said Peter. "Forget it. What's the difference what the inches of your body are so long as your

"Goodbye!" said Linda. "On the strength of that I'll jazz that sketch all up, bluey and redpurple and

As she swung the car around the sharp curve at the boulders she looked back and laughingly waved her hand

at Peter, and Peter experienced a wild desire to shriek lest she lose control of the car and plunge down the

steep incline. A second later, when he saw her securely on the road below, he smiled to himself.

"Proves one thing," he said conclusively. "She is over the horrors. She is driving unconsciously. Thank God

Not a mile below the exit from Peter's grounds, Linda perceived a heavily laden person toiling down the

roadway before her and when she ran her car abreast and stopped it, Henry Anderson looked up at her with

"Sorry I can't uncover, fair lady," he said, "but you see I am very much otherwise engaged."

What Linda saw was a tired, disheveled man standing in the roadway beside her car, under each arm a

boulder the size of her head, one almost jetblack, shot through with lines of white and flying figures of

white crossing between these bands that almost reminded one of winged dancers. The other was a

combination stone made up of matrix thickly imbedded with pebbles of brown, green, pink, and dull blue.

"For pity's sake!" said Linda. "Where are you going and why are you personally demonstrating a new method

"I am on my way down Lilac Valley to the residence of a friend of mine," said Henry Anderson. "I heard her

say the other day that she saved every peculiarly marked boulder she could find to preserve coolness and

"All well and good," she said; "but why in the cause of reason didn't you leave them at Peter's and bring them

Henry Anderson laid the stones in the bottom of the car, stepped in and closed the door behind him. He drew

"I had two sufficient personal reasons," he said. "One was that the car at our place is Peter Morrison's car, not

mine; and the other was that it's none of anybody's business but my own if I choose to 'say it' with stones."

Linda started the car, being liberal with gasso liberal that it was only a few minutes till Henry Anderson

"Two reasons seem to be all that are allowed for things at the present minute," answered Linda. "One of mine

is that you can't drive this beast slow, and the other is that my workroom is piled high with things I should be

doing. I have two sketches I must complete while I am in the mood, and I have had a great big letter from my

"In other words," said Henry Anderson bluntly, "you want me to understand that when I have reached your

"And who ever heard of such a thing," said Henry, "as a young woman sending away a person of my

numerous charms and attractions in order to work, or to write a letter to another woman?"

"But you're not taking into consideration," said Linda, "that I must work, and I scarcely know you, while I

"Well, she has no advantage over me" said Henry instantly, "because I have known you quite as long as Peter

"Well, don't for a minute think I am going to give you an opportunity to forget," said Henry Anderson.

He reached across and laid his hand over Linda's on the steering gear. Linda said nothing, neither did she

move. She merely added more gas and put the Bear Cat forward at a dizzy whirl. Henry laughed.

"That's all right, my beauty," he said. "Don't you think for a minute that I can't ride as fast as you can drive."

A dull red mottled Linda's cheeks. As quickly as it could be done she brought the Bear Cat to a full stop.

Then she turned and looked at Henry Anderson. The expression in her eyes was disconcerting even to that

cheeky young individualhe had not borne her gaze a second until he removed his hand.

"Thanks," said Linda in a dry drawl. "And you will add to my obligation if in the future you will remember

not to deal in assumptions. I am not your 'beauty,' and I'm not anyone's beauty; while the only thing in this

world that I am interested in at present is to get the best education I can and at the same time carry on work

that I love to do. I have a year to finish my course in the high school and when I finish I will only have a good

"That's nothing," said the irrepressible Henry. "It will take me two years to catch a sufficient number of gold

bugs to be really serious, but there wouldn't be any harm in having a mutual understanding and something

definite to work for, and then we might be able, you know, to cut out some of that year of high school

grinding. If the plans I have submitted in the Nicholson and Snow contest should just happen to be the prize

winners, that would put matters in such a shape for young Henry that he could devote himself to crickets and

"Don't you think," said Linda quietly, "that you would better forget that silly jesting and concentrate the best

"Why, surely I will if that's what you command me to do," said Henry, purposely misunderstanding her.

"You haven't mentioned before," said Linda, "that you had submitted plans in that San Francisco contest."

"All done and gone," said Henry Anderson lightly. "I had an inspiration one day and I saw a way to improve

a house with comforts and conveniences I never had thought of before. I was enthusiastic over the production

when I got it on paper and figured it. It's exactly the house that I am going to build for Peter, and when I've

cut my eye teeth on it I am going to correct everything possible and build it in perfection for you."

"Look here," said Linda soberly, "I'm not accustomed to this sort of talk. I don't care for it. If you want to

preserve even the semblance of friendship with me you must stop it, and get to impersonal matters and stay

"All right," he agreed instantly, "but if you don't like my line of talk, you're the first girl I ever met that

"You have my sympathy," said Linda gravely. "You have been extremely unfortunate."

Then she started the Bear Cat, and again running at undue speed she reached her wildflower garden. Henry

Anderson placed the stones as she directed and waited for an invitation to come in, but the invitation was not

given. Linda thanked him for the stones. She told him that in combination with a few remaining from the

mantel they would make all she would require, and excusing herself she drove to the garage. When she came

in she found the irrepressible Henry sitting on the back steps explaining to Katy the strenuous time he had

had finding and carrying down the stones they had brought. Katy had a plate of refreshments ready to hand

When she had finished her letter to Marian she took a sheet of drawing paper, and in her most attractive

lettering sketched in the heading, "A Palate Teaser," which was a direct quotation from Katy. Below she

You will find Tunas in the cacti thickets of any desert, but if you are so fortunate as to be able to reach

specimens which were brought from Mexico and set as hedges around the gardens of the old missions, you

will find there the material for this salad in its most luscious form. Naturally it can be made from either

Opuntia FiscusIndica or Opuntia Tuna, but a combination of these two gives the salad an exquisite

appearance and a tiny touch more delicious flavor, because Tuna, which is red, has to my taste a trifle richer

and fuller flavor than Indica, which is yellow. Both fruits taste more like the best wellripened watermelon

Bring down the Tunas with a fishing rod or a long pole with a nail in the end. With anything save your

fingers roll them in the sand or in tufts of grass to remove the spines. Slice off either end, score the skin down

one side, press lightly, and a lush globule of pale gold or rosy red fruit larger than a hen's egg lies before you.

With a sharp knife, beginning with a layer of red and ending with one of yellow, slice the fruits thinly,

stopping to shake out the seeds as you work. In case you live in San Diego County or farther south, where it

is possible to secure the scarlet berries of the Strawberry Cactus it is the Mammillaria Goodridgei species

that you should usea beautiful decoration for finishing your salad can be made from the red strawberries of

these. If you live too far north to find these, you may send your salad to the table beautifully decorated by

cutting fancy figures from the red Tuna, or by slicing it lengthwise into oblong pieces and weaving them into

For your dressing use the juice of a lemon mixed with that of an orange, sweetened to taste, into which you

work, a drop at a time, four tablespoons of the best Palermo olive oil. If the salad is large more oil and more

To get the full deliciousness of this salad, the fruit must have been on ice, and the dressing made in a bowl

imbedded in cracked ice, so that when ready to blend both are icecold, and must be served immediately.

Gigantic specimens of fruitbearing Cacti can be found all over the Sunland Desert near to the city, but they

are not possessed of the full flavor of the cultivated old mission growths, so that it is well worth your while to

make a trip to the nearest of these for the fruit with which to prepare this salad. And if, as you gather it, you

should see a vision of a white head, a thin, ascetic, old face, a lean figure trailing a brown robe, slender white

hands clasping a heavy cross; if you should hear the music of worship ascending from the throats of

Benedictine fathers leading a clamoring choir of the blended voices of Spaniard, Mexican, and Indian,

combining with the music of the bells and the songs of the mocking birds, nest making among the Tunas, it

will be good for your soul in the line of purging it from selfishness, since in this day we are not asked to give

Linda read this over, working in changes here and there, then she picked up her pencil and across the top of

her sheet indicated an open sky with scarcely a hint of cloud. Across the bottom she outlined a bit of Sunland

Desert she well remembered, in the foreground a bed of flatleaved nopal, flowering red and yellow, the dark

red prickly pears, edible, being a near relative of the fruits she had used in her salad. After giving the prickly

pear the place of honor to the left, in higher growth she worked in the slender, cylindrical, jointed stems of

the Cholla, shading the flowers a paler, greenish yellow. On the right, balancing the Cholla, she drew the

oval, cylindrical columns of the hedgehog cactus, and the color touch of the big magenta flowers blended

exquisitely with the color she already had used. At the left, the length of her page, she drew a gigantic

specimen of Opuntia Tuna, covered with flowers, and welldeveloped specimens of the pears whose coloring

She was putting away her working materials when she heard steps and voices on the stairs, so she knew that

Eileen and John Gilman were coming. She did not in the least want them, yet she could think of no excuse for

refusing them admission that would not seem ungracious. She hurried to the wall, snatched down the

paintings for Peter Morrison, and looked around to see how she could dispose of them. She ended by laying

one of them in a large drawer which she pushed shut and locked. The other she placed inside a case in the

wall which formerly had been used for billiard cues. At their second tap she opened the door. Eileen was not

at her best. There was a worried look across her eyes, a restlessness visible in her movements, but Gilman

"Your pardon, fair lady, you did not," said Gilman. "That was merely a figure of speech. I meant named the

month. She has definitely promised in October, and I may begin to hunt a location and plan a home for us. I

"I am very glad you are so pleased, John," she said quietly, "and I hope that you will be as happy as you

"Oh, Linda prides herself on being deep and subtle and conveying hidden meanings," said Eileen. "She

means what a thousand people will tell you in the coming months: merely that they hope you will be happy."

"Of course," Linda hastened to corroborate, wishing if possible to avoid any unpleasantness.

"You certainly have an attractive workroom here," said John, "much as I hate to see it spoiled for billiards."

"It's too bad," said Linda, "that I have spoiled it for you for billiards. I have also spoiled the outside

"Oh, I don't know," said John. "I looked at it carefully the other day as I came up, and I thought your changes

"I am surely glad to hear that," said Linda. "Take a look through my skylight and my new window. Imagine

you see the rugs I am going to have and a few more pieces of furniture when I can afford them; and let me

particularly point out the fireplace that Henry Anderson and your friend Peter designed and had built for me.

John Gilman walked over and looked at the fireplace critically. He read the lines aloud, then he turned to

"I think you're right," said Gilman reflectively, "exactly right. Of course I would have no business copying

Linda's special fireplace where the same people would see it frequently; and if I had stopped to think a

"Yes," said John, "we'll go at once. I had to run up to tell our good news; and I wanted to tell you too, Linda

dear, that I think both of us misjudged Eileen the other day. You know, Linda, you have always dressed

according to your father's ideas, which were so much simpler and plainer than the manner in which your

mother dressed Eileen, that she merely thought that you wished to continue in his way. She had no objection

to your having any kind of clothes you chose, if only you had confided in her, and explained to her what you

Linda stood beside her table, one lean hand holding down the letter she had been writing. She stood very still,

but she was powerless to raise her eyes to the face of either John or Eileen. Above everything she did not

wish to go any further in revealing Eileen to John Gilman. If he knew what he knew and if he felt satisfied,

after what he had seen, with any explanation that Eileen could trump up to offer, Linda had no desire to carry

the matter further. She had been ashamed of what she already had done. She had felt angry and dissatisfied

"And it certainly was a great joke on both of us," said John jovially, "what we thought about that box of

cigarettes, you know. They were a prize given by a bridge club at an 'Ambassador' benefit for the Good

Samaritan Hospital. Eileen, the little card shark she is, won it, and she was keeping it hidden away there to

use as a gift for my birthday. Since we disclosed her plans prematurely, she gave it to me at once, and I'm

At that instant Linda experienced a revulsion. Previously she had not been able to raise her eyes. Now it

would have been quite impossible to avoid looking straight into Eileen's face. But Eileen had no intention of

meeting anyone's gaze at that minute. She was fidgeting with a sheet of drawing paper.

"Careful you don't bend that," cautioned Linda. Then she looked at John Gilman. He BELIEVED what he

Closing the door behind them, Linda leaned against it and looked up through the skylight at the creep blue of

the night, the lowhung stars. How long she stood there she did not know. Presently she went to her chair,

picked up her pencil, and slowly began to draw. At first she scarcely realized what she was doing, then she

became absorbed in her work. Then she reached for her color box and brushes, and shortly afterward tacked

against the wall an extremely clever drawing of a greatly enlarged wasp. Skillfully she had sketched a face

that was recognizable round the big insect eyes. She had surmounted the face by a fluff of bejewelled yellow

curls, encased the hind legs upon which the creature stood upright in pink velvet Turkish trousers and put tiny

gold shoes on the feet. She greatly exaggerated the wings into long trails and made them of green gauze with

ruffled edges. All the remainder of the legs she had transformed into so many braceleted arms, each holding a

tiny fan, or a necklace, a jewel box, or a handkerchief of lace. She stood before this sketch, studying it for a

few minutes, then she walked over to the table and came back with a big black pencil. Steadying her hand

with a mahl stick rested against the wall, with one short sharp stroke she drew a needlepointed stinger, so

screened by the delicate wings that it could not be seen unless you scrutinized the picture minutely. After

that, with careful, interested hands she brought out Peter Morrison's drawings and replaced them on the wall

Toward the last of the week Linda began to clear the mental decks of her ship of life in order that she might

have Saturday free for her promised day with Donald. She had decided that they would devote that day to

wavebeaten Laguna. It was a long drive but delightful. It ran over the old King's Highway between miles of

orange and lemon orchards in full flower, bordered by other miles of roses in their prime.

Every minute when her mind was not actively occupied with her lessons or her recipes Linda was dreaming

"All in the golden weather, forth let us ride today, You and I together on the King's Highway, The blue skies

above us, and below the shining sea; There's many a road to travel, but it's this road for me."

You must have ridden this road with an understanding heart and the arm of God around you to know the

exact degree of disappointment that swelled in Linda's heart when she answered the telephone early Saturday

morning and heard Donald Whiting's strained voice speaking into it. He was talking breathlessly in eager,

"Linda, I am in a garage halfway downtown," he was saying, "and it looks to me as if to save my soul I

couldn't reach you before noon. I have had the darnedest luck. Our Jap got sick last week and he sent a new

man to take his place. There wasn't a thing the matter with our car when I drove it in Friday night. This

morning Father wanted to use it on important business, and it wouldn't run. He ordered me to tinker it up

enough to get it to the shop. I went at it and when it would go, I started You can imagine the clip I was going,

and the thing went to pieces. I don't know yet how it comes that I saved my skin. I'm pretty badly knocked

"Oh, that's all right," said Linda, fervently hoping that the ache in her throat would not tincture her voice.

It was halfpast eleven when Donald came. Linda could not bring herself to give up the sea that day. She

found it impossible to drive the King's Highway. It seemed equally impossible not to look on the face of the

ocean, so she compromised by skirting Santa Monica Bay, and taking the foothill road she ran it to the north

end of the beach drive. When they had spread their blankets on the sand, finished their lunch and were

resting, Linda began to question Donald about what had happened. She wanted to know how long Whitings'

gardener had been in their employ; if they knew where he lived and about his family; if they knew who his

friends were, or anything concerning him. She inquired about the man who had taken his place, and wanted

most particularly to know what the garage men had found the trouble with a car that ran perfectly on Friday

night and broke down in half a dozen different places on Saturday morning. Finally Donald looked at her,

"Linda," he said, "you're no nerve specialist and no naturalist. You're the cross examiner for the plaintiff.

"Of course it's all right," said Linda, watching a distant pelican turn head down and catapult into the sea. "It

has to be all right, but you must admit that it looks peculiar. How have you been getting along this week?"

Donald waved his hand in the direction of a formation of stone the size of a small house.

"Been rolling that to the top of the mountain," he said lightly. Linda's eyes narrowed, her face grew

"Is it as difficult as that?" she asked in a lowered voice as if the surf and the sea chickens might hear.

"It is just as difficult as that," said Donald. "While you're talking about peculiar things, I'll tell you one. In

class I came right up against Oka Sayye on the solution of a theorem in trigonometry. We both had the

answer, the correct answer, but we had arrived at it by widely different routes, and it was up to me to prove

that my line of reasoning was more lucid, more natural, the inevitable one by which the solution should be

reached. We got so in earnest that I am afraid both of us were rather tense. I stepped over to his

demonstration to point out where I thought his reasoning was wrong. I got closer to the Jap than I had ever

been before; and by gracious, Linda! scattered, but nevertheless still there, and visible, I saw a sprinkling of

gray hairs just in front of and over his ears. It caught me unawares, and before I knew what I was doing,

before the professor and the assembled classroom I blurted it out: 'Say, Oka Sayye, how old are you?' If the

Jap had had any way of killing me, I believe he would have done it. There was a look in his eyes that was

what I would call deadly. It was only a flash and then, very courteously, putting me in the wrong, of course,

he remarked that he was 'almost ninekleen'; and it struck me from his look and the way he said it that it was a

lie. If he truly was the average age of the rest of the class there was nothing for him to be angry about. Then I

did take a deliberate survey. From the settled solidity of his frame and the shape of his hands and the skin of

his face and the set of his eyes in his head, I couldn't see that much youth. I'll bet he's thirty if he's a day, and I

shouldn't be a bit surprised if he has graduated at the most worthwhile university in Japan, before he ever

Linda was watching a sea swallow now, and slowly her lean fingers were gathering handfuls of sand and

sifting them into a little pyramid she was heaping beside her. Again almost under her breath she spoke.

"Donald, do you really believe that?" she asked. "Is it possible that mature Jap men are coming here and

entering our schools and availing themselves of the benefits that the taxpayers of California provide for their

"Didn't you know it?" asked Donald. "I hadn't thought of it in connection with Oka Sayye, but I do know

"Oh, Donald!" exclaimed Linda. "If California is permitting that or ever has permitted it, we're too easy. We

"Why, I know it's true," said Donald. "I have been in the same classes with men more than old enough to be

"I never was," said Linda, industriously sifting sand. "I have been in classes with Japs ever since I have been

at school, but it was with girls and boys of our gardeners and fruit dealers and curioshop people, and they

were always of my age and entitled to be in school, since our system includes the education of anybody who

"Oh, I am so sorry!" cried Donald. "I certainly shall try to see that it doesn't occur again. Could we do it next

"I told Dad," said Donald, "where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, and he was awfully sorry but he

said it was business and it would take only a few minutes and he thought I could do it and be on time. If he

had known I would be detained I don't believe he would have asked it of me. He's a grand old peter, Linda."

"Yes, I know," said Linda. "There's not much you can tell me about peters of the grand sort, the real, true

fleshandblood, bighearted, humanbeing fathers, who will take you to the fields and the woods and take

the time to teach you what God made and how He made it and why He made it and what we can do with it,

and of the fellowship and brotherhood we can get from Nature by being real kin. The one thing that I have

had that was the biggest thing in all this world was one of these real fathers."

"Sure I did," said Donald. "Told the whole family at dinner last night. Told 'em about all the things I was

learning, from where to get soap off the bushes to the best spot for material for wooden legs or instantaneous

"Unanimously in favour of continuing the course," he said. "I had already told Father about you when I asked

him for books and any help that he could give me with Oka Sayye. Since I had mentioned you last night he

told Mother and Louise about that, and they told me to bring you to the house some time. All of them are

crazy to know you. Mother says she is just wild to know whether a girl who wears boots and breeches and

who knows canyons and the desert and the mountains as you do can be a feminine and lovable person."

"If I told her how many friends I have, she could have speedily decided whether I am lovable or not," said

Linda; "but I would make an effort to convince her that I am strictly feminine."

"You would convince her of that without making the slightest effort. You're infinitely more feminine than

"Well," said Donald, "it's a queer thing about you, Linda. I take any liberty I pretty nearly please with most of

the girls I have been associated with. I tie their shoes and pull their hairdown if I want toand hand them

round 'most any way the notion takes me, and they just laugh and take the same liberties with me, which

proves that I am pretty much a girl with them or they are pretty much boys with me. But it wouldn't occur to

me to touch your hair or your shoe lace or the tips of your fingers; which proves that you're more feminine

than any other girl I know, because if you were not I would be treating you more like another boy. I thought,

the first day we were together, that you were like a boy, and I said so, and I thought it because you did not

tease me and flirt with me, but since I have come to know you better, you're less like a boy than any other girl

"Don't get psychological, Donald," said Linda. "Go on with the Jap. I haven't got an answer yet to what I

really want to know. Have you made the least progress this week? Can you beat him?"

"Beat him at that trig proposition the other day," he said. "Got an open commendation before the class.

There's not a professor in any of my classes who isn't 'hep' to what I'm after by this time, and if I would cajole

them a little they would naturally be on my side, especially if their attention were called to that incident of

yesterday; but you said I have to beat him with my brains, by doing better work than he does; so about the

biggest thing I can honestly tell you is that I have held my own. I have only been ahead of him once this

week, but I haven't failed in anything that he has accomplished. I have been able to put some additional

touches to some work that he has done for which he used to be marked A which means your One Hundred.

Double A which means your plus I made in one instance. And you needn't think that Oka Sayye does not

realize what I am up to as well as any of the rest of the class, and you needn't think that he is not going to

give me a run for my brain. All I've got will be needed before we finish this term."

"I wish," said Donald, "that we had started this thing two years ago, or better still, four. But of course you

were not in the high school four years ago and there wasn't a girl in my class or among my friends who cared

whether I beat the Jap or not. They greatly preferred that I take them motoring or to a dance or a picture show

or a beach party. You're the only one except Mother and Louise who ever inspired me to get down to

Linda laid her palm on the top of the sand heap and pressed it flat. She looked at Donald with laughing eyes.

"Symbolical," she announced. "That sand was the Jap." She stretched her hand toward him. "That was you.

"That was not easy," said Linda; "make a mental computation of all the seconds that it took me to erect that

"Let's hotfoot it down to the African village and see what the movies are doing that is interesting today," she

On her pillow that night before dropping to almost instantaneous sleep Linda reflected that if you could not

ride the King's Highway, racing the sands of Santa Monica was a very excellent substitute. It had been a

wonderful day after all. When she had left Donald at the Lilac Valley end of the car line he had held her hand

tight an instant and looked into her face with the most engaging of clear, boyish smiles.

"Linda, isn't our friendship the nicest thing that ever happened to us?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Linda promptly, "quite the nicest. Make your plans for all day long next Saturday."

At the close of Monday's sessions, going down the broad walk from the high school, Donald overtook Linda

and in a breathless whisper he said: "What do you think? I came near Oka Sayye again this morning in trig,

and his hair was as black as jet, dyed to a midnight, charcoal finish, and I am not right sure that he had not

borrowed some girl's lipstick and rouge pot for the benefit of his lips and cheeks. Positively he's hectically

Then he hurried on to overtake the crowd of boys he had left, Linda's heart was racing in her breast.

Turning, she reentered the school building, and taking a telephone directory she hunted an address, and

then, instead of going to the car line that took her to Lilac Valley she went to the address she had looked up.

With a pencil she wrote a few lines on a bit of scratch paper in one of her books. That note opened a door and

admitted her to the presence of a tall, lean, grayhaired man with quick, bluegray eyes and lips that seemed

capable of being either grave or gay on short notice. With that perfect ease which Linda had acquired through

the young days of her life in meeting friends of her father, she went to the table beside which this man was

"I am Linda Strong, the younger daughter of Alexander Strong. I think you knew my father."

"Yes," said the Judge, "I knew him very well indeed, and I have some small acquaintance with his daughter

If she had been watching as her father would have watched, Linda would have seen the slight uplift of the

Judge's figure, the tensing of his muscles, the narrowing of his eyes in the swift, speculative look he passed

over her from the crown of her bare, roughened black head down the goldbrown of her dress to her slender,

wellshod feet. The last part of that glance Linda caught. She slightly lifted one of the feet under inspection,

thrust it forward and looked at the Judge with a gay challenge in her dark eyes.

The Judge was embarrassed. A flush crept into his cheeks. He was supposed to be master of any emergency

that might arise, but one had arisen in connection with a slip of a schoolgirl that left him wordless.

"It is very probable," said Linda, "that if my shoes had been like most other girls' shoes I wouldn't be here

today. I was in the same schoolroom with your son for three years, and he never saw me or spoke to me until

one day he stopped me to inquire why I wore the kind of shoes I did. He said he had a battle to wage with me

because I tried to be a law to myself, and he wanted to know why I wasn't like other girls. And I told him I

had a crow to pick with HIM because he had the kind of brain that would be content to let a Jap beat him in

his own school, in his own language and in his own country; so we made an engagement to fight to a finish,

and it ended by his becoming the only boy friend I have and the nicest boy friend a girl ever had, I am very

Linda lifted her eyes and Judge Whiting looked into them till he saw the same gold lights in their depths that

Peter Morrison had seen. He came around the table and placed a big leather chair for Linda. Then he went

"Of course," said the Judge in his most engaging manner. "I gather from what Donald has told me that you

have a reason for being here, and I want you to understand that I am intensely interested in anything you have

"I came," said Linda, "because I started something and am afraid of the possible result. I think very likely if,

in retaliation for what Donald said to me about my hair and my shoes, I had not twitted him about the use he

was making of his brain and done everything in my power to drive him into competition with Oka Sayye in

the hope that a white man would graduate with the highest honors, he would not have gone into this

"Judge Whiting," she said earnestly, "I know very little about men. The most I know was what I learned

about my father and the men with whom he occasionally hunted and fished. They were all such fine men that

I must have grown up thinking that every man was very like them, but one day I came in direct contact with

the Jap that Donald is trying to beat, and the thing I saw in his face put fear into my heart and it has been

there ever since. I have almost an unreasoning fear of that Jap, not because he has said anything or done

anything. It's just instinctive. I may be wholly wrong in having come to you and in taking up your time, but

there are two things I wanted to tell you. I could have told Donald, but if I did and his mind went off at a

tangent thinking of these things he wouldn't be nearly so likely to be in condition to give his best thought to

his studies. If I really made him see what I think I have seen, and fear what I know I fear, he might fail where

I would give almost anything to see him succeed; so I thought I would come to you and tell you about it and

ask you please to think it over, and to take extra care of him, because I really believe that he may be in

danger; and if he is I never shall be able to rid myself of a sense of responsibility."

"I see," said Judge Whiting. "Now tell me, just as explicitly as you have told me this, exactly what it is that

"Last Saturday," said Linda, "Donald told me that while standing at the board beside Oka Sayye,

demonstrating a theorem, he noticed that there were gray hairs above the Jap's ears, and he bluntly asked him,

before the professor and the class, how old he was. In telling me, he said he had the feeling that if the Jap

could have done so in that instant, he would have killed him. He said he was nineteen, but Donald says from

the matured lines of his body, from his hands and his face and his hair, he is certain that he is thirty or more,

and he thinks it very probable that he may have graduated at home before he came here to get his English for

nothing from our public schools. I never before had the fact called to my attention that this was being done,

but Donald told me that he had been in classes with matured men when he was less than ten years of age.

That is not fair, Judge Whiting; it is not right. There should be an age specified above which people may not

"I quite agree with you," said the Judge. "That has been done in the grades, but there is nothing fair in

bringing a boy under twenty in competition with a man graduated from the institutions of another country,

"You can be certain that it is," said Linda, "because Donald whispered to me as he passed me half an hour

ago, coming from the school building, that TODAY Oka Sayye's hair is a uniform, shining black, and he also

thought that he had used a lipstick and rouge in an effort at rejuvenation. Do you think, from your knowledge

"No," said Judge Whiting, "I don't think such a thing would occur to him unless he saw it."

"Neither do I," said Linda. "From the short acquaintance I have with him I should not call him at all

imaginative, but he is extremely quick and wonderfully retentive. You have to show him but once from which

cactus he can get Victrola needles and fishing hooks, or where to find material for wooden legs."

The Judge laughed. "Doesn't prove much," he said. "You wouldn't have to show me that more than once

either. If anyone were giving me an intensive course on such interesting subjects, I would guarantee to

Linda nodded in acquiescence. "Then you can regard it as quite certain," she said, "that Oka Sayye is making

up in an effort to appear younger than he is which means that he doesn't want his right questioned to be in our

schools, to absorb the things that we are taught, to learn our language, our government, our institutions, our

"The other matter," said Linda, "was relative to Saturday. There may not be a thing in it, but sometimes a

woman's intuition proves truer than what a man thinks he sees and knows. I haven't SEEN a thing, and I don't

KNOW a thing, but I don't believe your gardener was sick last week. I believe he had a dirty job he wanted

done and preferred to save his position and avoid risks by getting some other Jap who had no family and no

interests here, to do it for him. I don't BELIEVE that your car, having run all right Friday night, was shot to

pieces Saturday morning so that Donald went smash with it in a manner that might very easily have killed

him, or sent him to the hospital for months, while Oka Sayye carried off the honors without competition I

want to ask you to find out whether your regular gardener truly was ill, whether he has a family and interests

to protect here, or whether he is a man who could disappear in a night as Japs who have leased land and have

families cannot. I want to know about the man who took your gardener's place, and I want the man who is

repairing your car interviewed very carefully as to what he found the trouble with it."

"I see," he said at last. "Thank you very much for coming to me. All these things and anything that develops

from them shall be handled carefully. Of course you know that Donald is my only son and you can realize

"It is because I do realize that," said Linda, "that I am here. I appreciate his friendship, but it is not for my

own interests that I am asking to have him taken care of while he wages his mental war with this Jap. I want

Donald to have the victory, but I want it to be a victory that will be an inspiration to any boy of white blood

among any of our allies or among peoples who should be our allies. There's a showdown coming between the

white race and a mighty aggregation of colored peoples one of these days, and if the white man doesn't

realize pretty soon that his supremacy is not only going to be contested but may be lost, it just simply will be

The Judge was studying deeply now. Finally he said: "Young lady, I greatly appreciate your coming to me.

There may be NOTHING in what you fear. It MIGHT be a matter of national importance. In any event, it

shows that your heart is in the right place. May Mrs. Whiting and I pay you a visit some day soon in your

"Of course," said Linda simply. "I told Donald to bring his mother the first time he came, but he said he did

not need to be chaperoned when he came to see me, because my father's name was a guarantee to his mother

"I wonder how many of his other girl friends invited him to bring his mother to see them," said the Judge.

"Oh, he probably grew up with the other girls and was acquainted with them from tiny things," said Linda.

"Very likely," conceded the Judge. "I think, after all, I would rather have an invitation to make one of those

trips with you to the desert or the mountains. Is there anything else as interesting as fish hooks and Victrola

"Oh, yes," said Linda, leaning farther forward, a lovely color sweeping up into her cheeks, her eyes ashine.

She had missed the fact that the Judge was jesting. She had thought him in sober, scientific earnest.

"It's an awfully nice thing if you dig a plant or soil your hands in hunting, or anything like that, to know that

there are four or five different kinds of vegetable soap where you can easily reach them, if you know them. If

you lose your way or have a long tramp, it's good to know which plants will give you drink and where they

are. And if you're short of implements, you might at any time need a mescal stick, or an arrow shaft or an

arrow, even. If Donald were lost now, he could keep alive for days, because he would know what wood

would make him a bow and how he could take amole fiber and braid a bow string and where he could make

arrows and arrow points so that he could shoot game for food. I've taught him to make a number of snares,

and he knows where to find and how to cook his greens and potatoes and onions and where to find his pickles

and how to make lemonade and tea, and what to use for snake bite. It's been such fun, Judge Whiting, and he

"Yes, I should think he would be," said the Judge. "I am interested myself. If you would take an old boy like

"You'd like brigand beefsteak," suggested Linda, "and you'd like cress salad, and I am sure you'd like

Linda suddenly sat straight. A dazed expression crossed her face. Presently she recovered.

"Will you kindly tell me," she said, "what a great criminal judge knows about Jane Meredith?"

"I wonder," said Linda, "if a judge hears so many secrets that he forgets what a secret is and couldn't possibly

"On the other hand," said Judge Whiting, "a judge hears so many secrets that he learns to be a very secretive

person himself, and if a young lady just your size and so like you in every way as to be you, told me anything

and told me that it was a secret, I would guarantee to carry it with me to my grave, if I said I would."

One of Linda's special laughs floated out of the windows. Her right hand slipped across the table toward the

"All right," bubbled Linda. "Judge Whiting, allow me to present to you Jane Meredith, the author and

originator of the Aboriginal Cookery articles now running in Everybody's Home.',

Linda stood up as she made the presentation and the Judge arose with her. When she bowed her dark head

before him the Judge bowed equally as low, then he took the hand he held and pressed it against his lips.

"I am not surprised," he said. "I am honored, deeply honored, and I am delighted. For a high school girl that

"But you realize, of course," said Linda, "that it is vicarious. I really haven't done anything. I am just passing

on to the world what Alexander Strong found it interesting to teach his daughter, because he hadn't a son."

"I certainly am fortunate that my son is getting the benefit of this," said Judge Whiting earnestly. "There are

girls who make my oldfashioned soul shudder, but I shall rest in great comfort whenever I know that my

"Sure!" laughed Linda. "I'm not vamping him. I don't know the first principles. We're not doing a thing worse

than sucking 'hunters' rock leek' or roasting Indian potatoes or fishing for trout with cactus spines. I have had

such a lovely time I don't believe that I'll apologize for coming. But you won't waste a minute in making sure

Coming from school a few days later on an evening when she had been detained, Linda found a radiant Katy

"So be," said Katy. "It's a good time I'm havin'. In the first place the previous boss of this place ain't nowise

so bossy as sue used to be, an' livin' with her is a dale aisier. An' then, when Miss Eileen is around these days,

she is beginning to see things, and she is just black with jealousy of ye. Something funny happened here the

afternoon, an' she was home for once an' got the full benefit of it. I was swapin' the aist walk, but I know she

was inside the window an' I know she heard. First, comes a great big loaded automobile drivin' up, and

stopped in front with a flourish an' out hops as nice an' nate a lookin' lad as ever you clapped your eyes on,

an' up he comes to me an' off goes his hat with a swape, an' he hands me that bundle an' he says: 'Here's

Katy handed Linda a bundle of newspaper, inside which, wrapped in a man's handkerchief, she found several

plants, carefully lifted, the roots properly balled, the heads erect, crisp, although in full flower.

"Oh, Katy!" cried Linda. "Look, it's Gallito, 'little rooster'!" "Now ain't them jist yellow violets?" asked Katy

"No," said Linda, "they are not. They are quite a bit rarer. They are really a wild pansy. Bring water, Katy,

"I don't care what you have," answered Linda. "I am just compelled to park these little roosters at once."

"Nothing ungodly about it," answered Linda. "It's funny. Gallito is the Spanish name for these violets, and it

Linda set the violets as carefully as they had been lifted and rinsed her hands at the hydrant.

"It's there on the top of the rock pile, which you notice has incrased since ye last saw it."

"So it has!" said Linda. "So it has! And beautifully colored specimens those are too. My fern bed will lift up

its voice and rejoice in them. And rocks mean Henry Anderson. The box I do not understand."

Linda picked it up, untied the string, and slipped off the wrapping. Katy stared in widemouthed amazement.

"I was just tickled over that because Miss Eileen saw a good looking and capable young man leave a second

package, right on the heels of young Whiting," she said. "Whatever have ye got, lambie? What does that

Linda held up a beautiful box of glass, inside of which could be seen swarming specimens of every bug,

beetle, insect, and worm that Henry Anderson had been able to collect in Heaven only knew what hours of

search. Linda opened the box. The winged creatures flew, the bettles tumbled, the worms went over the top.

She set it on the ground and laughed to exhaustion. Her eyes were wet as she looked up at Katy.

"That first night Henry Anderson and Peter Morrison were here to dinner, Katy," she said, "Anderson made a

joke about being my bugcatcher when I built my home nest, and several times since he has tried to be silly

about it, but the last time I told him it was foolishness to which I would listen no more, so instead of talking,

he has taken this way of telling me that he is fairly expert as a bugcatcher. Really, it is awfully funny, Katy."

"Ye know, lambie," she said, her hands on her hips, her elbows widespread, her jaws argumentative, "I've

done some blarneying with that lad, an' I've fed him some, because he was doin' things that would help an'

please ye, but now I'm tellin' ye, just like I'll be tellin' ye till I die, I ain't STRONG for him. If ever the day

comes when ye ask me to take on that Whiting kid for me boss, I'll bow my head an' I'll fly at his bidding,

because he is real, he's goin' to come out a man lots like your pa, or hisn. An' if ever the day comes when ye

will be telling me ye want me to serve Pater Morrison, I'll well nigh get on my knees to him. I think he'd be

the closest we'd ever come to gettin' the master back. But I couldn't say I'd ever take to Anderson. They's

"Don't worry, ancient custodian of the family," said Linda. "That same something in Henry Anderson that

antagonizes you, affects me in even stronger degree. You must not get the foolish notion that any man has a

speculative eye on me, because it is not true. Donald Whiting is only a boy friend, treating me as a brother

would, and Peter Morrison is much too sophisticated and mature to pay any serious attention to a girl with a

year more high school before her. I want to be decent to Henry Anderson, because he is Peter's architect, and

I'm deeply interested in Peter's house and the lady who will live in it. Sometimes I hope it will be Donald's

sister, Mary Louise. Anyway, I am going to get acquainted with her and make it my business to see that she

and Peter get their chance to know each other well. My job for Peter is to help run his brook at the proper

angle, build his bridge, engineer his road, and plant his grounds; so don't be dreaming any foolish dreams,

Katy folded her arms, tilted her chin at an unusually aspiring angle, and deliberately sniffed.

"Don't ye be lettin' yourself belave your own foolishness," she said. "I ain't done with me exhibit yet. On the

hall table ye will find a package from the Pater Morrison man that Miss Eileen had the joy of takin' in and

layin' aside for ye, an atop of it rists a big letter that I'm thinkin' might mean Miss Marian."

"Oh," cried Linda. "Why are you wasting all this time? If there is a letter from Marian it may mean that the

competition is decided; but if it is, she loses, because she was to telegraph if she won."

Linda rushed into the house and carried her belongings to her workroom. She dropped them on the table and

"I'll get you off my mind first," she said to the Morrison package, which enclosed a new article entitled "How

to Grow Good Citizens." With it was a scrawled line, "I'm leaving the head and heels of the future to you."

"How fine!" exulted Linda. "He must have liked the head and tail pieces I drew for his other article, so he

wants the same for this, and if he is well paid for his article, maybe in time, after I've settled for my hearth

No telegram to send. I grazed the first prize and missed the second because Henry Anderson wins with plans

so like mine that they are practically duplicates. I have not seen the winning plans. Mr. Snow told me as

gently as he could that the judges had ruled me out entirely. The winning plans are practically a reversal of

professionally drawn, and no doubt the specifications are far ahead of mine, as these are my weak spot,

although I have worked all day and far into the night on the mathematics of house building. Mr. Snow was

very kind, and terribly cut up about it. I made what I hope was a brave fight, I did so believe in those plans

that I am afraid to say just how greatly disappointed I am. All I can do is to go to work again and try to find

out how to better my best, which I surely put into the plans I submitted. I can't see how Henry Anderson

came to hit upon some of my personal designs for comforts and conveniences. I had hoped that no man

would think of my especial kitchen plans. I rather fancied myself as a benefactor to my sex, an emancipator

from drudgery, as it were. I had a concealed feeling that it required a woman who had expended her strength

combating the construction of a devilish kitchen, to devise some of my builtin conveniences, and I worked

as carefully on my kitchen table, as on any part of the house. If I find later that the winning plans include

these things I shall believe that Henry Anderson is a mind reader, or that lost plans naturally gravitate to him.

But there is no use to grouch further. I seem to be born a loser. Anyway, I haven't lost you and I still have

I have nothing else to tell you except that Mr. Snow has waited for me two evenings out of the week ever

since I wrote you, and he has taken me in his car and simply forced me to drive him for an hour over what

appeals to me to be the most difficult roads he could select. So far I have not balked at anything but he has

had the consideration not to direct me to the mountains. He is extremely attractive, Linda, and I do enjoy

being with him, but I dread it too, because his grief is so deep and so apparent that it constantly keeps before

me the loss of my own dear ones, and those things to which the hymn books refer as "aching voids" in my

But there is something you will be glad to hear. That unknown correspondent of mine is still sending letters,

and I am crazy about them. I don't answer one now until I have mulled over it two or three days and I try to

I judge from your letters that you are keeping at least even with Eileen, and that life is much happier for you.

You seem to be broadening. I am so glad for the friendship you have formed with Donald Whiting. My

mother and Mrs. Whiting were friends. She is a charming woman and it has seemed to me that in her

daughter Louise she has managed a happy compound of oldfashioned straightforwardness and unswerving

principle, festooned with happy trimmings of all that is best in the present days. I hope that you do become

acquainted with her. She is older than you, but she is the kind of girl I know you would like.

Don't worry because I have lost again, Linda dear. Today is my blue day. Tomorrow I shall roll up my

sleeves and go at it again with all my might, and by and by it is written in the books that things will come

"Confound such luck," she said emphatically. "I do not understand it. How can a man like Henry Anderson

know more about comforts and conveniences in a home than a woman with Marian's experience and

comprehension? And she has been gaining experience for the past ten years. That partner of his must be a

Linda went to the kitchen, because she was in pressing need of someone to whom to tell her troubles, and

there was no one except Katy. What Katy said was energetic and emphatic, but it comforted Linda, because

she agreed with it and what she was seeking at the minute was someone who agreed with her. As she went

back upstairs, she met Eileen on her way to the front door. Eileen paused and deliberately studied Linda's

"I presume," said Eileen at last, "that you and Katy would call the process through which you are going right

now, 'taking the bit in your teeth,' or some poetic thing like that, but I can't see that you are getting much out

of it. I don't hear the old laugh or the clatter of gay feet as I did before all this war of dissatisfaction broke out.

"You win," said Linda. "I have not cried, because I make it a rule never to resort to tears when I can help it;

so what you see now is unshed tears in my heart. They in no way relate to what you so aptly term my 'war of

dissatisfaction'; they are for Marian. She has lost again, this time the Nicholson and Snow prize in

"Serves her right," said Eileen, laughing contemptuously. "The ridiculous idea of her trying to compete in a

man's ageold occupation! As if she ever could learn enough about joists and beams and girders and

installing water and gas and electricity to build a house. She should have had the sense to know she couldn't

"But," said Linda quietly, "Marian wasn't proposing to be a contractor, she only wants to be an architect. And

the man who beat her is Peter Morrison's architect, Henry Anderson, and he won by such a narrow margin

that her plans were thrown out of second and third place, because they were so very similar to his. Doesn't

"That is more than curious," said Eileen slowly. "That is a very strange coincidence. They couldn't have had

anything from each other, because they only met at dinner, before all of us, and Marian went away the next

morning; it does seem queer." Then she added with a flash of generosity and justice, "It looks pretty good for

Marian, at that. If she came so near winning that she lost second and third because she was too near first to

"You are wrong," said Linda tersely, "if you think Marian cannot make wonderful plans for houses. But

going back to what my 'war of dissatisfaction' is doing to me, it's a pale affair compared with what it is doing

to you, Eileen. You look a debilitated silhouette of the near recent past. Do you feel that badly about giving

"I never professed to have the slightest authority over you," said Eileen very primly, as she drew back in the

shadows. "You have come and gone exactly as you pleased. All I ever tried to do was to keep up a decent

"That never seemed to wear on you as something seems to do now," said Linda. "I am thankful that this week

ends it. I was looking for you because I wanted to tell you to be sure not to make any date that will keep you

from meeting me at the office of the president of the Consolidated Bank Thursday afternoon. I am going to

arrange with John to be there and it shouldn't take fifteen minutes to run through matters and divide the

income in a fair way between us. I am willing for you to go on paying the bills and ordering for the house as

"Certainly you are," sneered Eileen. "You are quite willing for all the work and use the greater part of my

Linda suddenly drew back. Her body seemed to recoil, but her head thrust forward as if to bring her eyes in

Linda started to school half an hour earlier Wednesday morning because that was the day for her weekly trip

to the Post Office for any mail which might have come to her under the name of Jane Meredith. She had hard

work to keep down her color when she recognized the heavy gray envelope used by the editor of Everybody's

Home. As she turned from the window with it in her fingers she was trembling slightly and wondering

whether she could have a minute's seclusion to face the answer which her last letter might have brought.

There was a small alcove beside a public desk at one side of the room. Linda stepped into this, tore open the

envelope and slipped out the sheet it contained. Dazedly she stared at the slip that fell from it. Slowly the

color left her cheeks and then came rushing back from her surcharged heart until her very ears were red,

because that slip was very manifestly a cheque for five hundred dollars. Mentally and physically Linda shook

herself, then she straightened to full height, tensing her muscles and holding the sheet before her with a hand

I sincerely apologize for having waited so long before writing you of the very exceptional reception which

your articles have had. I think one half their attraction has been the exquisite and appealing pictures you have

sent for their illustration. At the present minute they are forming what I consider the most unique feature in

the magazine. I am enclosing you a cheque for five hundred dollars as an initial payment on the series. Just

what the completed series should be worth I am unable to say until you inform me how many months you can

keep it up at the same grade of culinary and literary interest and attractive illustration; but I should say at a

rough estimate that you would be safe in counting upon a repetition of this cheque for every three articles you

send in. This of course includes payment for the pictures also, which are to me if anything more attractive

than the recipes, since the local color and environment they add to the recipe and the word sketch are

If you feel that you can continue this to the extent of even a small volume, I shall be delighted to send you a

book contract. In considering this proposition, let me say that if you could not produce enough recipes to fill

a book, you could piece it out to the necessary length most charmingly and attractively by lengthening the

descriptions of the environment in which the particular fruits and vegetables you deal with are to be found;

and in book form you might allow yourself much greater latitude in the instructions concerning the handling

of the fruits and the preparation of the recipes. I think myself that a wonderfully attractive book could be

made from this material, and hope that you will agree with me. Trusting that this will be satisfactory to you

and that you will seriously consider the book proposition before you decline it, I remain, my dear madam,

Gripping the cheque and the letter, Linda lurched forward against the window casement and shut her eyes

tight, because she could feel big, nervous gulps of exultation and rejoicing swelling up in her throat. She

shifted the papers to one hand and surreptitiously slipped the other to her pocket. She tried to keep the papers

before her and looked straight from the window to avoid attracting attention. The tumult of exultation in her

heart was so wild that she did not surely know whether she wanted to sink to the floor, lay her face against

the glass, and indulge in what for generations women have referred to as "a good cry," or whether she wanted

Then she returned the letter and cheque to the envelope, and slipped it inside her blouse, and started on her

way to school. She might as well have gone to Multiflores Canyon and pitted her strength against climbing its

walls for the day, for all the good she did in her school work. She heard no word of any recitation by her

schoolmates. She had no word ready when called on for a recitation herself. She heard nothing that was said

by any of the professors. On winged feet she was flying back and forth from the desert to the mountains, from

the canyons to the sea. She was raiding beds of amass and devising ways to roast the bulbs and make a new

dish. She was compounding drinks from mescal and bisnaga. She was hunting desert pickles and trying to

remember whether Indian rhubarb ever grew so far south. She was glad when the dismissal hour came that

afternoon. With eager feet she went straight to the Consolidated Bank and there she asked again to be

"Am I wrong in my dates?" he inquired. "I was not expecting you until tomorrow."

"No, you're quite right," said Linda. "At this hour tomorrow. But, Mr. Worthington, I am in trouble again."

Linda looked so distressed that the banker pushed a chair to the table's side for her, and when she had seated

herself, he said quietly: "Tell me all about it, Linda. We must get life straightened out as best we can."

"I think I must tell you all about it," said Linda, "because I know just enough about banking to know that I

have a proposition that I don't know how to handle. Are bankers like father confessors and doctors and

"I think they are even more so," laughed Mr. Worthington. "Perhaps the father confessor takes precedence,

otherwise I believe people are quite as much interested in their financial secrets as in anything else in all this

"Yes," said Linda, "I have what is to me a big secret, and I don't in the least know how to handle it, so right

away I thought about you and that you would be the one to tell me what I could do."

"Go ahead," said Mr. Worthington kindly. "I'll give you my word of honor to keep any secret you confide to

Linda produced her letter. She opened it and without any preliminaries handed it and the cheque to the

banker. He looked at the cheque speculatively, and then laid it aside and read the letter. He gave every

evidence of having read parts of it two or three times, then he examined the cheque again, and glanced at

"And just how did you come into possession of this, young lady?" he inquired. "And what is it that you want

"Why, don't you see?" said Linda. "It's my letter and my cheque; I'm 'Jane Meredith.' Now how am I going to

For one dazed moment Mr. Worthington studied Linda; then he threw back his head and laughed

"Bully for you !" he cried exultantly. "How I wish your father could see the seed he has sown bearing its fruit.

"I think I must," said Linda. "I have said in my heart that no Jap, male or female, young or old, shall take first

honors in a class from which I graduate; and you can see that if people generally knew this, it would make it

awfully hard for me to go on with my studies, and I don't know that the editor who is accepting this work

would take it if he knew it were sent him by a highschool Junior. You see the dignified way in which he ad

"I'm sure," said Linda with demure lips, though the eyes above them were blazing and dancing at high

tension, "I'm sure that the editor is attaching a husband, and a house having a wellordered kitchen, and

"And what about this book proposition?" asked the banker gravely. "That would be a big thing for a girl of

"With the background I have, with the unused material I have, and with vacation coming before long, I can

do it easily," said Linda. "My school work is not difficult for me. It only requires concentration for about two

hours in the preparation that each day brings. The remainder of the time I could give to amplifying and

"I see," said the banker. "So you have resolved, Linda, that you don't want your editor to know your real

"But have you stopped to think," said the banker, "that you will be asked for personal history and about your

residence, and no doubt a photograph of yourself. If you continue this work anonymously you're going to

"But I am not going to have any trouble cashing a cheque," she said, "because I have come straight to the man

"True enough," he said; "I SHALL have to arrange the cheque; there's not a doubt about that; and as for your

"Not that I remember," said Linda. "I might possibly be acquainted with some of them. I have merely passed

"Then," said the banker, "we'll have to risk it. After this estate business is settled you will want to open an

"Then I would advise you," said Mr. Worthington, "to open this account in your own name. Endorse this

He left Linda sitting quietly reading and rereading her letter, and presently returned and laid a sheaf of paper

"Take it to the paying teller. Tell him that you wish to deposit it, and ask him to give you a bank book and a

cheque book," he said. "Thank you very much for coming to me and for confiding in me."

Linda gathered up the money, and said goodbye to the banker. Just as she started forward she recognized

Eileen at the window of the paying teller. It was an Eileen she never before had seen. Her face was strained to

a ghastly gray. Her hat was not straight and her hands were shaking. Without realizing that she was doing it,

Linda stepped behind one of the huge marble pillars supporting the ceiling and stood there breathlessly,

watching Eileen. She could gather that she was discussing the bank ledger which lay before the teller and that

he was refusing something that Eileen was imploring him to do. Linda thought she understood what it was.

"You mean that you are refusing to pay me my deposits on my private account?" she cried; and Linda could

"I am very sorry if it annoys or inconveniences you, Miss Strong, but since the settlement of the estate takes

morrow, our orders are to pay out no funds in any way connected with the estate until after that settlement has

"But this is my money, my own private affair," begged Eileen. "The estate has nothing to do with it."

"I am sorry," repeated the teller. "If that is the case, you will have no difficulty in establishing the fact in a

Eileen turned and left the bank, and it seemed that she was almost swaying. Linda stood a second with

"I think," she said at last, deep down in her heart, "that it looks precious much as if there had been a bit of

transgression in this affair. It looks, too, as if 'the way of the transgressor' were a darned hard way. Straight

Then she went quietly to the desk and transacted her own business; but her beautiful day was clouded. Her

heart was no longer leaping exultantly. She was sickened and sorrowful over the evident nerve strain and

discomfort which Eileen seemed to have brought upon herself. She dreaded meeting her at dinner that night,

and she wondered all the way home where Eileen had gone from the bank and what she had been doing.

What she felt was a pale affair compared with what she would have felt if she could have seen Eileen leave

the bank and enter a nearby store, go to a telephone booth and put in a longdistance call for San Francisco.

Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks by nature redder than the rouge she had used upon them. She squared her

shoulders, lifted her head, as if she irrevocably had made a decision and would not be thwarted in acting upon

it. While she waited she straightened her hat, and tucked up her pretty hair, once more evincing concern about

"Why, hello, girlie," was the quick response. "Delighted that you're calling your ancient uncle. Haven't

"Yes," said Eileen, "I have changed it. Do you and Aunt Caroline still want me, Uncle Jim?"

"YOU BET WE WANT YOU!" roared the voice over the 'phone. "Here we are, with plenty of money and

not a relation on earth but you to leave it to. You belong to us by rights. We'd be tickled to death to have you,

and for you to have what's left of the money when we get through with it. May I come after you? Say the

"Well, I could reach you by noon tomorrow. Eleven something is the shortest time it's been made in; that

"Yes," gasped Eileen, "yes, I am in the biggest kind of a hurry there is, Uncle Jim. This troublesome little

estate has to be settled tomorrow afternoon. There's going to be complaint about everything that I have seen

fit to do. I've been hounded and harassed till I am disgusted with it. Then I've promised to marry John Gilman

as I wrote you, and I don't believe you would think that was my best chance with the opportunities you could

give me. It seems foolish to stay here, abused as I have been lately, and as I will be tomorrow. You have the

house number. If you come and get me out of it by noon tomorrow, I'll go with you. You may take out those

adoption papers you have always entreated me to agree to and I'll be a daughter that you can be proud of. It

will be a relief to have some real money and some real position, and to breathe freely and be myself once

"All right for you, girlie!" bellowed the great voice over the line. "Pick up any little personal bits you can put

in a suitcase, and by twelve o'clock tomorrow I'll whisk you right out of that damn mess."

Eileen walked from the telephone booth with her head high, triumph written all over her face and figure.

She went home immediately. Entering her room, she closed the door and stood looking at her possessions.

How could she get her trunk from the garret? How could she get it to the station? Would it be possible for

Uncle James to take it in his car? As she pondered these things Eileen had a dim memory of a day in her

childhood when her mother had gone on business to San Francisco and had taken her along. She remembered

a huge house, all turrets and towers and gables, all turns and twists and angles, closed to the light of day and

glowing inside with shining artificial lights. She remembered stumbling over deep rugs. One vivid impression

was of walls covered with huge canvases, some of them having frames more than a foot wide. She

remembered knights in armor, and big fireplaces, and huge urns and vases. It seemed to her like the most

wonderful bazaar she ever had been in. She remembered, too, that she had been glad when her mother had

taken her out into the sunshine again and from the presence of two ponderous people who had objected

strongly to everything her mother had discussed with them. She paused one instant, contemplating this

picture. The look of triumph on her face toned down considerably. Then she comforted herself aloud.

"I've heard Mother say," she said softly, "that everybody overdid things and did not know how to be graceful

with immense fortunes got from silver and gold mines, and lumber. It will be different now. Probably they

don't live in the same house, even. There is a small army of servants, and there is nothing I can think of that

Uncle Jim won't gladly get me. I've been too big a fool for words to live this way as long as I have. Crush me,

will they? I'll show them! I won't even touch these things I have strained so to get."

Eileen jerked from her throat the strand of pearls that she had worn continuously for four years and threw it

"I'll make Uncle Jim get me a rope with two or three strands in it that will reach to my waist. 'A suitcase !' I

don't know what I would fill a suitcase with from here. The trunk may stay in the garret, and while I am

leaving all this rubbish, I'll just leave John Gilman with it. Uncle Jim will give me an income that will buy all

the cigarettes I want without having to deceive anyone; and I can have money if I want to stake something at

bridge without being scared into paralysis for fear somebody may find it out or the accounts won't balance.

I'll put on the most suitable thing I have to travel in, and just walk out and leave everything else."

That was what Eileen did. At noon the next day her eyes were bright with nervousness. Her cheeks

alternately paled with fear and flooded red with anxiety. She had dressed herself carefully, laid out her hat

and gloves and a heavy coat in case the night should be chilly. Once she stood looking at the dainty, brightly

"Tawdry little cheap things and makeshifts," she said. "If Linda feels that she has been so terribly defrauded,

By twelve o'clock she found herself standing at the window, straining her eyes down Lilac Valley. She was

not looking at its helpful hills, at its appealing curves, at its brilliant colors. She was watching the roadway.

When Katy rang to call her to lunch, she told her to put the things away; she was expecting people who

would take her out to lunch presently. In the past years she had occasionally written to her uncle. Several

times when he had had business in Los Angeles she had met him at his hotel and dined with him. She

reasoned that he would come straight to the house and get her, and then they would go to one of the big hotels

"I shan't feel like myself," said Eileen, "until we are well on the way to San Francisco."

At one o'clock she was walking the floor. At two she was almost frantic. At half past she almost wished that

she had had the good sense to have some lunch, since she was very hungry and under tense nerve strain. Once

she paused before the glass, but what she saw frightened her. Just when she felt that she could not endure the

strain another minute, grinding brakes, the blast of a huge Klaxon, and the sound of a great voice arose from

the street. Eileen rushed to the window. She took one look, caught up the suitcase and raced down the stairs.

At the door she met a bluff, big man, gross from head to foot. It seemed to Eileen strange that she could see

in him even a trace of her mother, and yet she could. Red veins crossed his cheeks and glowed on his nose.

His tired eyes were watery; his thick lips had an inclination to sag; but there was heartiness in his voice and

"What have they been doing to you down here?" he demanded. "Never should have left you this long. Ought

to have come down and taken you and showed you what you wanted, and then you would have known

At this juncture a huge woman, gross in a feminine way as her husband was in his, paddled up the walk.

"I'm comin' in and rest a few minutes," she said. "I'm tired to death and I'm pounded to pieces."

Her husband turned toward her. He opened his lips to introduce Eileen. His wife forestalled him.

"So this is the Eileen you have been ravin' about for years," she said. "I thought you said she was a pretty

Eileen's soul knew one sick instant of recoil. She looked from James Heitman to Caroline, his wife, and

remembered that he had a habit of calling her "Callie." All that paint and powder and lipstick and brilliantine

could do to make the ponderous, big woman more ghastly had been done, but in the rush of the long ride

through which her husband had forced her, the colors had mixed and slipped, the false waves were displaced.

She was not in any condition to criticize the appearance of another woman. For one second Eileen hesitated,

"I have been hounded out of my senses," she said apologetically, "and have been so terribly anxious for fear

you wouldn't get here on time. Please, Aunt Caroline, let us go to a hotel, some place where we can straighten

"Well, what's your hurry?" said Aunt Caroline coolly. "You're not a fugitive from justice, are you? Can't a

body rest a few minutes and have a drink, even? Besides, I am going to see what kind of a place you've been

Eileen turned and threw open the door. The big woman walked in. She looked down the hall, up the stairway,

and went on to the living room. She gave it one contemptuous glance, and turning, came back to the door.

"All right, Jim," she said brusquely. "I have seen enough. If you know the best hotel in the town, take me

there. And then, if Eileen's in such a hurry, after we have had a bite we'll start for home."

"You needn't take the trouble to 'aunt' me every time you speak to me," said the lady. "I know you're my

niece, but I ain't goin' to remind you of it every time I speak to you. It's agein', this 'auntie' business. I don't

stand for it, and as for a name, I am free to confess I always like the way Jim calls me 'Callie.' That sounds

"You just bet, old girl!" he said. "They ain't any of them can beat you, not even Eileen at her best. Let's get

"So I did," said Uncle Jim, "and I meant just what I said if it's all right with you. I suppose I did have, in the

back of my head, an idea that there might be a trunk or a boxsome things that belonged to your mother,

"Oh, never mind," interrupted Eileen. "Do let's go. It's nearly four o'clock. Any minute they may send for me

"Well, I'm not accustomed to being the porter, but if time's that precious, here we go," said Uncle Jim.

"Scoot down there and climb into that boat," he said proudly to Eileen. "We'll have a good dinner in a private

room when we get to the hotel. I won't even register. And then we'll get out of here when we have rested a

"No, ma'am, we can't," said James Heitman authoritatively. "We'll eat a bite because we need to be fed up,

and I sincerely hope they's some decent grub to be had in this burg. The first place we come to outside of

here, that looks like they had a decent bed, we'll stop and make up for last night. But we ain't agoin' to stay

"Yes, please!" panted Eileen. "I just don't want to meet any of them. It's time enough for them to know what

So Eileen started on the road to the unlimited wealth her soul had always craved.

At the bank Linda and John Gilman waited an hour past the time set for Eileen's appearance. Then Linda

"I have had a feeling for some time," she said quietly, "that Eileen would not appear today, and if she doesn't

see fit to come, there is no particular reason why she should. There is nothing to do but go over the revenue

from the estate. The books will show what Eileen has drawn monthly for her expense budget. That can be set

aside and the remainder divided equally between us. It's very simple. Here is a letter I wrote to the publishers

of Father's books asking about royalties. I haven't even opened it. I will turn it in with the remainder of the

They were in the office with the president of the bank. He rang for the clerk he wanted and the books he

required, and an hour's rapid figuring settled the entire matter, with the exception of the private account,

amounting to several thousands, standing in Eileen's name. None of them knew any source of separate

income she might have. At a suggestion from Linda, the paying teller was called in and asked if he could

"Not definitely," he said, "but the amounts always corresponded exactly with the royalties from the books. I

John Gilman made the suggestion that they should let the matter rest until Eileen explained about it. Then

"No," she said, "I know that Eileen HAD no source of private income. Mother used to mention that she had

some wealthy relatives in San Francisco, but they didn't approve of her marriage to what they called a 'poor

doctor,' and she would never accept, or allow us to accept, anything from them. They never came to see us

and we never went to see them. Eileen knows no more about them than I do. We will work upon the

supposition that everything that is here belonged to Father. Set aside to Eileen's credit the usual amount for

housekeeping expenses. Turn the private account in with the remainder. Start two new bank books, one for

Eileen and one for me. Divide the surplus each month exactly in halves. And I believe this is the proper time

for the bank to turn over to me a certain key, specified by my father as having been left in your possession to

With the key in her possession, Linda and John Gilman left the bank. As they stood for a moment in front of

the building, Gilman removed his hat and ran his hands through his hair as if it were irritating his head.

"Linda," he said in a deeply wistful tone, "I don't understand this. Why shouldn't Eileen have come today as

she agreed? What is there about this that is not according to law and honor and the plain, simple rights of the

"I don't know," said Linda; "but there is something we don't understand about it. And I am going to ask you,

John, as my guardian, closing up my affairs today, to go home with me to be present when I open the little

hidden door I found at the back of a library shelf when I was disposing of Daddy's technical books. There

was a slip of paper at the edge of it specifying that the key was in possession of the Consolidated Bank and

was to be delivered to me, in the event of Daddy's passing, on my coming of age. I have the key, but I would

like to have you with me, and Eileen if she is in the house, when I open that door. I don't know what is behind

it, but there's a certain feeling that always has been strong in my heart and it never was so strong as it is at

So they boarded the street car and ran out to Lilac Valley. When Katy admitted them Linda put her arm

around her and kissed her. She could see that the house was freshly swept and beautifully decorated with

flowers, and her trained nostrils could scent whiffs of delicious odors from food of which she was specially

fond. In all her world Katy was the one person who was celebrating her birthday. She seemed rather surprised

"She must have made some new friends," said Katy. "About four o'clock, the biggest car that ever roared

down this street rolled up, and the biggest man and woman that I ever see came puffin' and pantin' in. Miss

Eileen did not tell me where she was goin' or when she would be back, but I know it won't be the night,

because she took her little dressin' case with her. Belike it's another of them trips to Riverside or Pasadena."

"No, lambie, I jist can't," said Katy, "because a young person that's the apple of me eye is havin' a birthday

the day and I have got me custard cake in the oven and the custard is in the makin', and after Miss Eileen

went and I didn't see no chance for nothin' special, I jist happened to look out, one of the ways ye do things

unbeknownst to yourself, and there stood Mr. Pater Morrison moonin' over the 'graveyard,' like he called it,

and it was lookin' like seein' graves he was, and I jist took the bull by the horns, and I sings out to him and I

says: 'Mr. Pater Morrison, it's a good friend ye were to the young missus when ye engineered her skylight and

her beautiful fireplace, and this bein' her birthday, I'm takin' the liberty to ask ye to come to dinner and help

me celebrate.' And he said he would run up to the garage and get into his raygimentals, whatever them might

be, and he would be here at six o'clock. So ye got a guest for dinner, and if the custard's scorched and the

Then she led the way to the library, pulled aside the books, fitted the key to the little door, and opened it.

Inside lay a single envelope, sealed and bearing her name. She took the envelope, and walking to her father's

chair beside his library table, sat down in it, and laying the envelope on the table, crossed her hands on top of

"John," she said, "ever since I have been big enough to think and reason and study things out for myself,

there is a feeling I have hadI used to think it was unreasonable, then I thought it remote possibility. This

minute I think it's extremely probable. Before I open this envelope I am going to tell you what I believe it

contains. I have not the slightest evidence except personal conviction, but I believe that the paper inside this

envelope is written by my father's hand and I believe it tells me that he was not Eileen's father and that I am

not her sister. If it does not say this, then there is nothing in race and blood and inherited tendencies."

Linda picked up the paper cutter, ran it across the envelope, slipped out the sheet, and bracing herself she

These lines are to tell you that your mother went to her eternal sleep when you were born. Four years later I

met and fell in love with the only mother you ever have known. At the time of our marriage we entered into a

solemn compact that her little daughter by a former marriage and mine should be reared as sisters. I was to

give half my earnings and to do for Eileen exactly as I did for you. She was to give half her love and her best

I sincerely hope that what I have done will not result in any discomfort or inconvenience to you.

Linda laid the sheet on the table and dropped her hands on top of it. Then she looked at John Gilman.

"John," she said, "I believe you had better face the fact that the big car and the big people that carried Eileen

away today were her mother's wealthy relatives from San Francisco. She must have been in touch with them.

I think very likely she sent for them after I saw her in the bank yesterday afternoon, trying with all her might

John Gilman sat very still for a long time, then he raised tired, disappointed eyes to Linda's face.

"Linda," he said, "do you mean you think Eileen was not straight about money matters?"

"John," said Linda quietly, "I think it is time for the truth about Eileen between you and me. If you want me

"Well," said Linda, "I never knew Eileen to be honest about anything in all her life unless the truth served her

better than an evasion. Her hair was not honest color and it was not honest curl. Her eyebrows were not so

dark as she made them. Her cheeks and lips were not so red, her forehead and throat were not so white, her

form was not so perfect. Her friends were selected because they could serve her. As long as you were poor

and struggling, Marian was welcome to you. When you won a great case and became prosperous and fame

came rapidly, Eileen took you. I believe what I told you a minute ago: I think she has gone for good. I think

she went because she had not been fair and she would not be forced to face the fact before you and me and

the president of the Consolidated today. I think you will have to take your heart home tonight and I think that

before the night is over you will realize what Marian felt when she knew that in addition to having been able

to take you from her, Eileen was not a woman who would make you happy. I am glad, deeply g]ad, that there

is not a drop of her blood in my veins, sorry as I am for you and much as I regret what has happened. I won't

ask you to stay tonight, because you must go through the same black waters Marian breasted, and you will

want to be alone. Later, if you think of any way I can serve you, I will be glad for old sake's sake; but you

must not expect me ever to love you or respect your judgment as I did before the shadow fell."

Then Linda rose, replaced the letter, turned the key in the lock, and quietly slipped out of the room.

When she opened her door and stepped into her room she paused in astonishment. Spread out upon the bed

lay a dress of georgette with little touches of fur and broad ribbons of satin. In color it was like the flame of

seasoned beechwood. Across the foot of the bed hung petticoat, camisole, and hose, and beside the dress a

pair of satin slippers exactly matching the hose, and they seemed the right size. Linda tiptoed to the side of

the bed and delicately touched the dress, and then she saw a paper lying on the waist front, and picking it up

The lines were terse and to the point. Linda laid them down, and picking up the dress she walked to the

mirror, and holding it under her chin glanced down the length of its reflection. What she saw almost stunned

Then she tossed the dress on the bed and started in a headlong rush to the kitchen. As she came through the

door, "You blessed old darling!" she cried. "What am I going to say to make you know how I appreciate your

Katy raised her head. There was something that is supposed to be the prerogative of royalty in the lift of it.

"I have oodles of time," said Linda, "but I warn you, you won't know me if I put on that frock, Katy."

"Katy," said Linda, sobering suddenly, "would it make any great difference to you if I were the only one here

"But that is exactly what I must tell you, Katy," said Linda soberly. "You know I have told you a number of

times through these years that I did not believe Eileen and I were sisters, and I am telling you now that I

know it. She did not come to the bank today, and the settlement of Father's affairs developed the fact that I

was my father's child and Eileen was her mother's; and I'm thinking, Katy, that the big car you saw and the

opulent people in it were Eileen's mother's wealthy relatives from San Francisco. My guess is, Katy, that

Eileen has gone with them for good. Lock her door and don't touch her things until we know certainly what

"Lambie," she whispered softly, "are we ixpicted to go into mourning over this?"

"Well, if there are any such expectations abroad, Katherine O'Donovan," she said soberly, "the saints

"Not to be savin' our souls," answered Katy heartily. "I'm jist so glad and thankful that I don't know what to

do, and it's such good news that I don't belave one word of it. And while you're talkie', what about John

"I think," said Linda quietly, "that tonight is going to teach him how Marian felt in her blackest hours."

"Well, he needn't be coming to me for sympathy," said Katy. "But if Miss Eileen has gone to live with the

folks that come after her the day, ye might be savin' a wee crap o' sympathy for her, lambie. They was jist the

kind of people that you'd risk your neck slidin' down a mountain to get out of their way."

"That is too bad," said Linda reflectively; "because Eileen is sensitive and constant contact with crass

"Katherine O'Donovan," said Linda, "you're used to it; come again to confession. Tell me truly where and

"'Tain't no rule of polite society to be lookin' gift horses in the mouth," said Katy proudly. "HOW I got it is

me own affair, jist like ye got any gifts ye was ever makin' me, is yours. WHERE I got it? I went into the city

on the strafe car and I went to the biggest store in the city and I got in the elevator and I says to the naygur:

"And up comes a little woman, and her hair was jist as soft and curling round her ears, and brown and pretty

was her eyes, and the pink that God made was in her cheeks, and in a voice like runnin' water she says:

'Could I do anything for you?' I told her what I wanted. And she says: 'How old is the young lady, and what's

her size, and what's her color?' Darlin', ain't that dress the answer to what I told her?"

"Yes," said Linda. "If an artist had been selecting a dress for me he would probably have chosen that one.

But, old dear, it's not suitable for me. It's not the kind of dress that I intended to wear for years and years yet.

Do you think, if I put it on tonight, I'll ever be able to go back to boots and breeches again, and hunt the

Katy stood in what is commonly designated as a "brown study." Then she looked Linda over piercingly.

"Yes, ma'am," she said conclusively. "It's my judgment that ye will. I think ye'll maybe wrap the braids of ye

around your head tonight, and I think ye'll put on that frock, and I think ye'll show Pater Morrison how your

pa's daughter can sit at the head of his table and entertain her friends. Then I think ye'll hang it in your closet

and put on your boots and breeches and go back to your old Multiflores and attind to your business, the same

"All right, Katy," said Linda, "if you have that much faith in me I have that much faith in myself; but, old

dear, I can't tell you how I LOVE having a pretty dress for tonight. Katy dear, the 'Day of Jubilee' has come.

Before you go to sleep I'm coming to your room to tell you fine large secrets, that you won't believe for a

Then Linda raced to her room and began dressing. She let down the mop of her hair waving below her waist

"That dress never was made for braids down your back," she said, glancing toward the bed where it lay

shimmering in a mass of lovely color. "I am of age today; for state occasions I should be a woman. What

"Of course," said Linda, "that would be the thing to do. I certainly don't need anything to add to my height; I

So she parted her hair in the middle, brushed it back, divided it in even halves, and instead of braiding it, she

She slipped into the dress and struggled with its many and intricate fastenings. Then she went to the guest

room to stand before the fulllength mirror there. Slowly she turned. Critically she examined herself.

"It's a bit shorter than I would have ordered it," she said, "but it reduces my height, it certainly gives

wonderful freedom in walking, and it's not nearly so short as I see other girls wearing."

"Need some kind of ornament for my hair," she muttered, "but I haven't got it, and neither do I own beads,

bracelet, or a ring; and my ears are sticking right out in the air. I am almost offensively uncovered."

Then she went down to show herself to a delighted Katy. When the doorbell rang Linda turned toward the

"You'll do nothing of the sort," she said. "I answered the bell for Miss Eileen. Answer the bell I shall for

Down the hall went Katy with the light of battle in her eyes and the air of a conqueror in the carriage of her

head. She was well trained. Neither eyelid quivered as she flung the door wide to Peter Morrison. He stood

there in dinner dress, more imposing than Katy had thought he could be. With quick, inner exultation she

reached for two parcels he carried; over them her delight was so overpowering that Peter Morrison must have

seen a hint of it. With a flourish Katy seated him, and carried the packages to Linda. She returned a second

later for a big vase, and in this Linda arranged a great sheaf of radiant roses. As Katy started to carry them

back to the room, Linda said "Wait a second," and selecting one half opened, she slipped it out, shortened the

stem and tucked it among the coils of hair where she would have set an ornament. The other package was a

big box that when opened showed its interior to be divided into compartments in each of which nestled an

exquisite flower made of spun sugar. The petals, buds, and leaves were perfect. There were wonderful roses

with pale pink outer petals and deepercolored hearts. There were pink mallows that seemed as if they must

have been cut from the bushes bordering Santa Monica road. There were hollyhocks of white and gold, and

simply perfect tulips. Linda never before had seen such a treasure candy box. She cried out in delight, and

hurried to show Katy. In her pleasure over the real flowers and the candy flowers Linda forgot her dress, but

when she saw Peter Morrison standing tall and straight, in dinner dress, she stopped and looked the surprise

and pleasure she felt. She had grown accustomed to Peter in khaki pottering around his building. This Peter

she never before had seen. He represented something of culture, something of pride, a conformity to a nice

She could not see a wonderful aura of exquisite color enveloping Peter. But when Peter saw the girl

approaching him, transformed into a woman whose shining coronet was jewelled with his living red rose,

when he saw the beauty of her lithe slenderness clothed in a soft, flaming color, something emanated from his

inner consciousness that Linda did see, and for an instant it disturbed her as she went forward holding out her

"Peter," she said gaily, "do you know that this is my Day of Jubilee? I am a woman today by law, Peter.

Hereafter I am to experience at least a moderate degree of financial freedom, and that I shall enjoy. But the

"You take my breath," he said. "I knew, the first glimpse I ever had of you scrambling from the canyon floor,

that this transformation COULD take place. My good fortune is beyond words that I have been first to see it.

Peter bent and kissed both her hands. He hesitated a second, then he turned the right hand and left one more

"Thank you," said Linda, closing her fist over it and holding it up for inspection. "I'll see that it doesn't

escape. And this minute I thank you for the candy, which I know is delicious, and for my very first sheaf of

She turned fully around that he might catch the effect of the rose, and in getting that he also got the full effect

of the costume, and the possibilities of the girl before him. And then she gave him a shock.

"Isn't it a lovely frock?" she said. "Another birthday gift from the Strong rock of ages. I have been making a

collection of rocks for my fern bed, and I have got another collection that is not visible to anyone save

myself. Katy's a rock, and you're a rock, and Donald is a rock, and Marian's a rock, and I am resting securely

on all of you. I wish my father knew that in addition to Marian and Katy I have found two more such

"And what about Henry Anderson?" inquired Peter. "Aren't you going to include him?"

"Look here, Linda," he said sternly, "has that rather bold youngster made himself in any way offensive to

"Not in any way that I am not perfectly capable of handling myself," said Linda. She looked at Peter

"Do you suppose," she said, "that I can sit down in this thing without ruining it? Shouldn't I really stand up

"Linda, you're simply delicious," he said. "It seems to me that I have seen young ladies in like case reach

"Thank you, Peter, of course that would be the way," said Linda. "This being my first, I'm lacking in

"Now finish. Just one word more about Henry Anderson," he said. "Are you perfectly sure there is nothing I

"Oh, perfectly," said Linda lightly. "I didn't mean to alarm you. He merely carried that bugcatcher nonsense

a trifle too far. I wouldn't have minded humoring him and fooling about it a little. But, Peter, do you know

"No," said Peter, "I don't know him well at all. The only thing I am sure about him is that he is doing well in

his profession. I chose him because he was an ambitious youngster and I thought I could get more careful

attention from him than I could from some of the older fellows who had made their reputation. You see, there

are such a lot of things I want to know about in this building proposition, and the last four years haven't been

"Then," said Linda, "he is all right, of course. He must be. But I think I'm like a cat. I'm very complacent with

certain people, but when I begin to get goose flesh and hair prickles my head a bit, I realize that there is

something antagonistic around, something for me to beware of. I guess it's because I am such a wild

"Do you mean to say," said Peter, "that these are the sensations that Henry gives you?"

"Now forget Henry," she said. "I have had such a big day I must tell you about it, and then we'll come to that

last article you left me. I haven't had time to put anything on paper concerning it yet, but I believe I have an

awfully good idea in the paint pot, and I'll find time in a day or two to work it out. Peter, I have just come

from the bank, where I was recognized as of legal age, and my guardian discharged. And perhaps I ought to

explain to you, Peter, that your friend, John Gilman, is not here because this night is going to be a bad one for

him. When you knew him best he was engaged, or should have been, to Marian Thorne. When you met him

this time he really was engaged to Eileen. I don't know what you think about Eileen. I don't feel like

influencing anyone's thought concerning her, so I'll merely say that today has confirmed a conviction that

always has been in my heart. Katy could tell you that long ago I said to her that I did not believe Eileen was

my sister. Today has brought me the knowledge and proof positive that she is not, and today she has gone to

some wealthy relatives of her mother in San Francisco. She expressed her contempt for what she was giving

up by leaving everything, including the exquisite little necklace of pearls which has been a daily part of her

since she owned them. I may be mistaken, but intuition tells me that with the pearls and the wardrobe she has

also discarded John Gilman. I think your friend will be suffering tonight quite as deeply as my friend suffered

when John abandoned her at a time when she had lost everything else in life but her money. I feel very sure

that we won't see Eileen any more. I hope she will have every lovely thing in life."

"Amen," said Peter Morrison earnestly. "I loved John Gilman when we were in school together, but I have

not been able to feel, since I located here, that he is exactly the same John; and what you have told me very

Peter Morrison stepped beside her and offered his arm. Linda rested her finger tips upon it and he led her to

the head of the table and seated her. Then Katy served a meal that, if it had been prepared for Eileen, she

would have described as a banquet. She gave them delicious, finely flavored food, stimulating, exquisitely

compounded drinks that she had concocted from the rich fruits of California and mints and essences at her

command. When, at the close of the meal, she brought Morrison some of the cigars Eileen kept for John

Gilman, she set a second tray before Linda, and this tray contained two packages. Linda looked at Katy

inquiringly, and Katy, her face beaming, nodded her sandy red head emphatically.

"More birthday gifts you've havin', me lady," she said in her mellowest Irish voice.

"More?" marveled Linda. She picked up the larger package, and opening it, found a beautiful book inscribed

Katherine O'Donovan could have answered that question, but she did not. The other package was from

"What a joke!" she said. "I had promised myself that I would not touch a thing in Eileen's room, and before I

could do justice to Katy's lovely dress I had to go there for pins for my hair and powder for my nose. This is

"Hairpins," laughed Linda, "and hair ornaments, and a box of face powder, and the little, feminine touches

that my dressing table needs badly. How would you like, Peter, to finish your cigar in my workroom?"

So together they climbed to the top of the house. Linda knelt and made a little ceremony of lighting the first

fire in her fireplace. She pushed one of her chairs to one side for Peter, and taking the other for herself, she

sat down and began the process of really becoming acquainted with him. Two hours later, as he was leaving

her, Peter made a circuit of the room, scrutinizing the sketches and paintings that were rapidly covering the

walls, and presently he came to the wasp. He looked at it so closely that he did not miss even the stinger.

Linda stood beside him when he made his first dazed comment: "If that isn't Eileen, and true to the life!"

"I must take that down," said Linda. "I did it one night when my heart was full of bitterness."

"Linda," he said quietly, "what I think of you has not yet been written in any of the books."

As soon as Peter had left her Linda took her box of candy flowers and several of her finest roses and went to

Katy's room. She found Katy in a big rocking chair, her feet on a hassock, reading a story in Everybody's

home. When her door opened and she saw her young mistress framed in it she tossed the magazine aside and

sprang to her feet, but Linda made her resume her seat. The girl shortened the stems of the roses and put them

"They may clash with your coloring a mite, Mother Machree," she said, "but by themselves they are very

Linda went over, and drawing her dress aside, sat down on the hassock and leaning against Katy's knee she

"Ah, the foine gintleman!" cried Katy. "Sure 'twas only a pape I had when ye opened the box, an' I didn't

But Katy would not touch the delicate things, so Linda selected a brushy hollyhock for her and then sat at her

"Katherine O'Donovan," she said solemnly, "it's up to a couple of young things such as we are, stranded on

the shoals of the Pacific as we have been, to put our heads together and take counsel. You're a host, Katy, and

while I am taking care of you, I'll be just delighted to have you go on looking after your black sheep; but it's

going to be lonely, for all that. After Eileen has taken her personal possessions, what do you say to fixing up

that room with the belongings that Marian kept, and inviting her to make that suite her home until such time

"Foine!" cried Katy. "I'd love to be havin' her. I'd agree to take orders from Miss Marian and to be takin' care

of her jist almost the same as I do of ye, Miss Linda. The one thing I don't like about it is that it ain't fair nor

right to give even Marian the best. Ye be takin' that suite yourself, lambie, and give Miss Marian your room

all fixed up with her things, or, if ye want her nearer, give her the guest room and make a guest room of

"I am willing to follow either of the latter suggestions for myself," said Linda; "it might be pleasant to be

across the hall from Marian where we could call back and forth to each other. I wouldn't mind a change as

soon as I have time to get what I'd need to make the change. I'll take the guest room for mine, and you may

call in a decorator and have my room freshly done and the guest things moved into it."

Katy looked belligerent. Linda reached up and touched the frowning lines on her forehead.

"Brighten your lovely features with a smile, Katherine me dear," she said gaily. "Don't be forgetting that this

is our Day of Jubilee. We are freeI hope we are free foreverfrom petty annoyances and dissatisfactions

and little, galling things that sear the soul and bring out all the worst in human nature. I couldn't do anything

to Eileen's suite, not even if I resorted to tearing out partitions and making it new from start to finish, that

would eliminate Eileen from it for me. If Marian will give me permission to move and install her things in it,

I think she can use it without any such feeling, but I couldn't. It's agreed then, Katy, I am to write to Marian

"That ye may, lambie," said Katy heartily. "And, as the boss used to be sabin', just to make assurance doubly

sure, if YoU would address it for me I would be writing' a bit of a line myself, conveying' to her me

"And, Katy dear, it won't make us feel any more like mourning for Eileen when I tell you that it developed at

the bank yesterday and today, that since she has been managing household affairs she has deposited in a

separate account all the royalties from Father's books. I had thought the matter closed at the bank when this

fund was added to the remainder of the estate, the household expenses set aside to Eileen, and the remainder

divided equally between us. I didn't get the proof that she was not my sister until after I came home. I think it

means that I shall have to go back to the bank, have the matter reopened, and unless she can produce a will or

something proving that she is entitled to it, it seems to me that what remains of my father's estate is legally

mine. Of course, if it develops that he has made any special provision for her, she shall have it; otherwise,

Katy, we'll be in a position to install you as housekeeper and put some lightfooted, capable young person

under you for a stepsaver in any direction you want to use her. It means, too, that I shall be able to repay

your loan immediately and to do the things that I wanted to do about the house."

"Now I ain't in any hurry about that money, lambie," said Katy; "and you understand of course that the dress

"Of course, old dear, and you should have seen Peter Morrison light up and admire it. He thinks you have

"Oh, my Lord, lambie!" she cried, aghast. "Was you telling' him that the dress ye were wearing' was a present

"Why, certainly I was," said Linda, wide eyed with astonish meet. "Why shouldn't I? I was proud to. And

now, old dear, before I go, the biggest secret of all. I had a letter, Katy, from the editor of Everybody's Home,

and people like our articles, KatY; they are something now and folk are letting the editor know about it, and

he wants all I can send him. He likes the pictures I make; and, Katy, you won't believe it till I show you my

little bank book, but for the three already published with their illustrations he pays me five hundred nice,

"Judas praste!" cried Katy, her hands once more aloft. "Ye ain't manin' it, lambie?"

"Yes, I are," laughed Linda. "I've got the money; and for each succeeding three with their pictures I am to

have that much more, and when I finish now steady yourself, Katy, because this is going to be a

shockwhen I finish, blessed old dear heart, he is going to make them into a book! That will be my job for

this summer, and you shall help me, and it will be a part of our great secret. Won't it be the most fun?"

"My soul!" said Katy. "You're jist crazy. I don't belave a word you're telling' me."

Katy threw her arms around the girl and kissed the top of her head and cried over her and laughed at the same

time and patted her and petted her and ended by saying: "Oh, lambie, if only the master could be knowin' it."

She went to her room, removed the beautiful dress and, arranging it on a hanger, left it in her closet. Slipping

into an old dressing gown, she ran to her workroom and wrote a letter to Marian from herself. She tried not to

tell Marian the big, vital thing that was throbbing in her heart all day concerning her work, the great secret

that meant such a wonderful thing to her, the thing that was beating in her heart and fluttering behind her lips

like a bird trying to escape its cage; but she could tell her in detail of Eileen's undoubted removal to San

Francisco; she could tell her enough of the financial transactions of the day to make her

understand what had been happening in the past; and she could tell of her latest interview with John Gilman.

Once, as she sat with her pen poised, thinking how to phrase a sentence, Linda said to herself: "I wonder in

my heart if he won't try to come crawfishing back to Marian now, and if he does, I wonder, oh, how I

wonder, what she will do." Linda shut her lips very tight and stared up through her skylight to the stars, as she

"Well, I know one thing," she said to the shining things above her, "Marian will do as she sees fit, of course,

but if it were I, and any man had discarded me as John Gilman discarded Marian, in case he ever wanted to

pick me up again he would find I was not there. Much as I plan in my heart for the home and the man and the

little people that I hope to have some day, I would give up all of them before I would be discarded and

resought like that; and knowing Marian as I do, I have a conviction that she will feel the same way. From

the things she is writing about this Snow man I think it is highly probable that he may awake some day to

learn that he is not so deeply grieved but that he would like to have Marian to comfort him in his loneliness;

and as for his little girl I don't see where he could find a woman who would rear her more judiciously and

She finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and then, taking out a fresh sheet, she lettered in at the top of it,

And very good potatoes they are. You will find these growing everywhere throughout California, blooming

from May to July, their six long, slender, white petals shading to gold at the base, grayish on the outside, a

pollenladen pistil upstanding, eight or ten goldclubbed stamens surrounding it, the slender brown stem

bearing a dozen or more of these delicate blooms, springing high from a base of leaves sometimes nearly two

feet long and an inch broad, wave margined, spreading in a circle around it. In the soil of the plains and the

dry hillsides you will find an amazingly large solid bulb, thickly enwrapped in a coat of brown fiber, the long

threads of which can be braided, their amazing strength making them suitable for bow strings, lariats, or rope

of any kind that must needs be improvised for use at the moment. The bulbs themselves have many uses.

Crushed and rubbed up in water they make a delightful cleansing lather. The extracted juice, when cooked

down, may be used as glue. Of the roasted bulbs effective poultices for bruises and boils may be made. It was

an Indian custom to dam a small stream and throw in mashed Amole bulbs, the effect of which was to stupefy

the fish so that they could be picked out by hand; all of which does not make it appear that the same bulb

would serve as an excellent substitute for a baked potato; but we must remember how our grandmothers made

starch from our potatoes, used them to break in the new ironware, and to purify the lard; which goes to prove

that one vegetable may be valuable for many purposes. Amole, whose ponderous scientific name is

Chlorogalum pomeridiarum, is at its best for my purposes when all the chlorophyll from flower and stem has

been driven back to the bulb, and it lies ripe and fully matured from late August until December.

Remove the fibrous cover down to the second or third layer enclosing the bulb. These jackets are necessary as

they keep the bulbs from drying out and having a hard crust. Roast them exactly as you would potatoes.

When they can easily be pierced with a silver fork remove from the oven, and serve immediately with any

"And gee, but they're good!" commented Linda as she reread what she had written.

After that she turned her attention to drawing a hillside whitened here and there with amole bloom showing in

its purity against the warm grayishtan background. The waving green leaves ran among big rocks and

overlapped surrounding growth. At the right of her drawing Linda sketched in a fine specimen of monkey

flower, deepening the yellow from the hearts of the amole lilies for the almost human little monkey faces. On

the left one giant specimen of amole, reared from a base of exquisitely waving leaves, ran up the side of the

drawing and broke into an airy and graceful head of goldhearted white lilies. For a long time Linda sat with

poised pencil, studying her foreground. What should she introduce that would be most typical of the location

and gave her the desired splash of contrasting color that she used as a distinctive touch in the foreground of

Her pencil flew busily a few minutes while she sketched in a flatly growing bush of prickly phlox, setting the

flower faces as closely as the overlapped scales of a fish, setting them even as they grow in nature; and when

she resorted to the color box she painted these faces a wonderful pink that was not wild rose, not cerise, not

lilac, but it made one think of all of them. When she could make no further improvement on this sketch, she

Afterward she cleared her mental decks of all the work she could think of in order to have Saturday free,

because Saturday was the day upon which she found herself planning in the back of her mind throughout the

strenuous week, to save for riding the King's Highway with Donald Whiting. Several times she had met him

on the walks or in the hallways, and always he had stopped to speak with her and several times he had

referred to the high hope in which he waited for Saturday. Linda already had held a consultation with Katy on

the subject of the lunch basket. That matter being satisfactorily arranged, there was nothing for her to do but

to double on her work so that Saturday would be free. Friday evening Linda was called from the dinner table

to the telephone. She immediately recognized the voice inquiring for her as that of Judge Whiting, and then

she listened breathlessly while he said to her: "You will recognize that there is very little I may say over a

telephone concerning a matter to which you brought my attention. I have a very competent man looking into

the matter thoroughly, and I find that your fear is amply justified. Wherever you go or whatever you do, use

particular care. Don't have anything to do with any stranger. Just use what your judgment and common sense

tell you is a reasonable degree of caution in every direction no matter how trivial. You understand?"

"I do," said Linda promptly. "Would you prefer that we do not go on any more Saturday trips at present?"

The length of time that the Judge waited to answer proved that he had taken time to think.

"I can't see," he said finally, "that you would not be safer on such a trip where you are moving about, where

"All right then," said Linda. "Ask the party we are considering and he will tell you where he will be

tomorrow. Thank you very much for letting me know. If anything should occur, you will understand that it

With all care and many loving admonitions Katy assisted in the start made early Saturday morning. The

previous Saturday Linda had felt that all nature along the road she planned to drive would be at its best, but

they had not gone far until she modified her decision. They were slipping through mists of early morning,

over level, carefully made roads like pavilion floors. If any one objection could have been made, it would

have been that the mists of night were weighting too heavily to earth the perfume from the blooming orchards

and millions of flowers in gardens and along the roadside. At that hour there were few cars abroad. Linda was

dressed in her outing suit of dark green. She had removed her hat and slipped it on the seat beside her. She

"Please to 'scuse me," she said lightly, "if I step on the gas a mite while we have the road so much to

ourselves and are so familiar with it. Later, when we reach stranger country and have to share with others,

"Don't stint your speed on account of me," said Donald. "I am just itching to know what Kitty can do."

She settled her body a trifle tensely, squared her shoulders, and gripped the steering wheel. Then she

increased the gas and let the Bear Cat roll over the smooth road from Lilac Valley running south into Los

Angeles. At a speed that was near to flying as a nonprofessional attains, the youngsters traveled that road.

Their eyes were shining; their blood was racing. Until the point where rougher roads and approaching traffic

forced them to go slower, they raced, and when they slowed down they looked at each other and laughed in

"I may not be very wise," said Linda, "but didn't I do the smartest thing when I let Eileen have the touring car

"Nothing short of inspiration," said Donald. "The height of my ambition is to own a Bear Cat. If Father

makes any mention of anything I would like particularly to have for a graduation present, I am cocked and

"You'd better save yourself a disappointment," said Linda soberly. "You will be starting to college this fall,

and when you do you will be gone nine months out of the year, and I am fairly sure your father wouldn't

think shipping a Bear Cat back and forth a good investment, or furnishing you one to take to school with you.

He would fear you would never make a grade that would be a credit to him if he did."

"When you're thrown on your own for four of the longest, lonesomest years of your life, you learn to think,"

She was touching the beginning of Los Angeles traffic. Later she was on the open road again. The mists were

thinning and lifting. The perfume was not so heavy. The sheeted whiteness of the orange groves was broken

with the paler white of plum merging imperceptibly into the delicate pink of apricot and the stronger pink of

peach, and there were deep green orchards of smooth waxen olive foliage and the lacyleaved walnuts. Then

came the citrus orchards again, and all the way on either hand running with them were almost uninterrupted

miles of roses of every color and kind, and everywhere homes ranging from friendly mansions, all written

over in adorable flower color with the happy invitation, "Come in and make yourself at home," to tiny

bungalows along the wayside crying welcome to this gay pair of youngsters in greetings fashioned from

white and purple wisteria, gold bignonia, every rose the world knows, and myriad brilliant annual and

perennial flower faces gathered from the circumference of the tropical globe and homing enthusiastically on

the King's Highway. Sometimes Linda lifted her hand from the wheel to wave a passing salute to a

particularly appealing flower picture. Sometimes she whistled a note or cried a greeting to a mockingbird, a

"Look at the pie timber!" she cried to Donald, calling his attention to a lawn almost covered with redwinged

Then a subtle change began to creep over the world. The sun peered over the mountains inquiringly, a timid

young thing, as if she were asking what degree of light and warmth they would like for the day. A new

brilliancy tinged every flower face in this light, a throbbing ecstasy mellowed every bird note; the orchards

dropped farther apart, meadows filled with grazing cattle flashed past them, the earthy scent of freshly turned

fields mingled with flower perfume, and on their right came drifting in a cool salt breath from the sea. At

midforenoon, as they neared Laguna, they ran past great hills, untouched since the days when David cried:

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help." At one particularly beautiful range,

draped with the flowing emerald of spring, decorated with beds of gold poppy, set with flowering madrona

and manzanita, with the gold of yellow monkey flower or the rich red of the related species, with specimens

of lupin growing in small trees, here and there adventurous streams singing and flashing their unexpected

way to the mother breast of the waiting ocean very near to the road which at one surprising turn carried them

to the neverending wonder of the troubled sea, they drove as slowly as the Bear Cat would consent to travel,

so that they might study great boulders, huge as many of the buildings they had passed, their faces scarred by

the wrack of ages. Studying their ancient records one could see that they had been familiar with the star that

rested over Bethlehem. On their faces had shone the same moon that opened the highways Journeying into

Damascus. They had stood the storms that had beaten upon the world since the days when the floods

subsided, the land lifted above the face of the waters in gigantic upheavals that had ripped the surface of the

globe from north to south and forced up the hills, the foothills, and the mountains of the Coast Range. They

had been born then, they had first seen the light of day, in glowing, molten, redhot, highpiled streams of

Sometimes Linda stopped the car, they left it, and climbed over the faces of these mighty upheavals. Once

Linda reached her hand to Donald and cried, half laughingly, half in tense earnest: "Oh, kid, we have got to

hurry. Compared with the age of these, we've only a few minutes. It's all right to talk jestingly about 'the

crack of doom' but you know there really was a crack of doom, and right here is where it cracked and spewed

out the material that hardened into these very rocks. Beside them I feel as a shrimp must feel beside a whale,

"And so we must," said Donald. "I'm hungry as Likeliest when he waited for them to find enough peacock

"Well, you know," said Donald, "the world was only a smallish place then. They didn't have to go far to find

everything to which they had access, and it must have been rather a decent time in which to live. Awful lot of

"You're talking," said Linda, "from the standpoint of the king or the master. Suppose you had lived then and

"There you go again," said Donald, "throwing a brick into the most delicate mechanism of my profound

thought. You ought to be ashamed to round me up with something scientific and materialistic every time I go

"You wait and see where we lunch today, and you will have the answer to that," said Linda, starting back to

A few miles farther on they followed the road around the frowning menace of an overhanging rock and sped

out directly to the panorama of the sea. The sun was shining on it, but, as always round the Laguna shore, the

rip tide was working itself into undue fury. It came dashing up on the ancient rocks until one could easily

understand why a poet of long ago wrote of sea horses. Some of the waves did suggest monstrous white

Through the village, up the steep inclines, past placid lakes, past waving yellow mustard beds, beside

highways where the breastplate of Mother Earth gleamed emerald and ruby against the background of billions

of tiny, shining diamonds of the iceplant, past the old ostrich tree reproduced by etchers of note the world

over, with grinding brakes, sliding down the breathless declivity leading to the shore, Linda stopped at last

where the rock walls lifted sheer almost to the sky. She led Donald to a huge circle carpeted with cerise sand

verbena, with pink and yellow iceplant bloom, with jewelled iceplant foliage, with the running blue of the

lovely sea daisy, with the white and pink of the sea fig, where the walls were festooned with ferns, lichens,

studded all over with flaming Our Lord's Candles, and strange, uncanny, grotesque flower forms, almost

human in their writhing turns as they twisted around the rocks and slipped along clinging to the sheer walls.

Just where the vegetation met the white, seawashed sand, Linda spread the Indian blanket, and Donald

brought the lunch box. At their feet adventurous waves tore themselves to foam on the sharp rocks. On their

left they broke in booming spray, tearing and fretting the base of cliffs that had stood impregnable through

"I wonder," said Donald, "how it comes that I have lived all my life in California, and today it seems to me

that most of the worthwhile things I know about her I owe to you. When I go to college this winter t.he things

I shall be telling the boys will be how I could gain a living, if I had to, on the desert, in Death Valley, from

the walls of Multiflores Canyon; and how the waves go to smash on the rocks of Laguna, not to mention

cactus fish hooks, mescal sticks, and brigand beefsteak. It's no wonder the artists of all the world come here

copying these pictures. It's no wonder they build these bungalows and live here for years, unsatisfied with

"I wonder," said Linda, "if anybody is very easily satisfied. I wonder today if Eileen is satisfied with being

merely rich. I wonder if we are satisfied to have this golden day together. I wonder if the white swallows are

satisfied with the sea. I wonder if those rocks are satisfied and proud to stand impregnable against the

"I wonder, oh, Lord, how I wonder," broke in Donald, "about Katherine O'Donovan's lunch box. If you want

"Thank heaven you're mistaken," she said; "they spared me the 'Be'. It's truly just 'Linda."'

"Well, I'm not sparing you the 'Be'," said Donald, busy with the fastenings of the lunch basket. "Did you

"Yes, child, and I like it heaps," said Linda casually. "It's fine to have you like me. Awfully proud of myself."

"You have two members of our family at your feet," said Donald soberly as he handed her packages from the

box. "My dad is beginning to discourse on you with such signs of intelligence that I am almost led to believe,

from some of his wildest outbursts, that he has had some personal experience in some way."

"And why not?" asked Linda lightly. "Haven't I often told you that my father constantly went on fishing and

hunting trips, that he was a great collector of botanical specimens, that he frequently took his friends with

him? You might ask your father if he does not recall me as having fried fish and made coffee and rendered

"Well, he didn't just mention it," said Donald, "but I can .easily see how it might have been."

After they had finished one of Katy's inspired lunches, in which a large part of the inspiration had been

mental on Linda's part and executive on Katy's, they climbed rock faces, skirted wavebeaten promontories,

and stood peering from overhanging cliffs dipping down into the fathomless green sea, where the water

boiled up in turbulent fury. Linda pointed out the rocks upon which she would sit, if she were a mermaid, to

comb the seaweed from her hair. She could hear the sea bells ringing in those menacing depths, but Donald's

ears were not so finely tuned. At the top of one of the highest cliffs they climbed, there grew a clump of

slender pale green bushes, towering high above their heads with exquisitely cut bluegreen leaves, lance

"Linda," he said, "do you know that the slimness and the sheerness and the audacious foothold and the beauty

of that thing remind me of you? It is covered all over with the delicate frostbloom you taught me to see upon

Linda laughingly reached up and broke a spray of greenishyellow tubular flowers, curving out like clustered

"You will see it everywhere. You will find these flowers every month of the year," she said, "and I am

particularly gladsome that this plant reminds you of me. I love the bluishgreen 'bloom' of its sheer foliage. I

love the music these flower trumpets make to me. I love the way it has traveled, God knows how, all the way

from the Argentine and spread itself over our country wherever it is allowed footing. I am glad that there is

soothing in these dried leaves for those who require it. I shall be delighted to set my seal on you with it. There

are two little Spanish words that it suggests to the MexicanBuena mozabut you shall find out for

Encountering his father that night at his library door, Donald Whiting said to him: "May I come in, Dad? I

have something I must look up before I sleep. Have you a Spanish lexicon, or no doubt you have this in your

"Linda put this flower on me today," said Donald, "and she said she was pleased because I said the tall,

slender bush it grew on reminded me of her. She gave me the Spanish name, but I don't know the exact

significance of the decoration I am wearing until I learn the meaning of the phrase."

"Son," he said, "you should know that from the Latin you're learning. You should translate it instinctively. I

couldn't tell you exactly whether a Spaniard would translate 'Buena' 'fine' or 'good.' Knowing their

highfalutin' rendition of almost everything else I would take my chance on 'fine.' Son, your phrase means 'a

Donald looked down at the flower in his buttonhole, and then he looked straight at his father.

"And only the Lord knows, Dad," he said soberly, "exactly how fine Lindagirl is."

I am delighted that you had such a wonderful birthday. I would take a shot in air that anything you don't

understand about it you might with reasonable safety charge to Katherine O'Donovan. I think it was great of

her to have a suitable and a becoming dress waiting for you and a congenial man like Peter Morrison to dine

with you. He appealed to me as being a rare character, highly original, and, I should think, to those who know

him well he must be entertaining and lovable in the extreme. I never shall be worried about you so long as I

I should not be surprised if some day I meet Eileen somewhere, because Dana and I are going about more

than you would believe possible. I heartily join with you in wishing her every good that life can bring her. I

don't want to be pessimistic, but I can't help feeling, Linda, that she is taking a poor way to win the best, and I

gravely doubt whether she finds it in the spending of unlimited quantities of the money of a coarse man who

stumbled upon his riches accidentally, as has many a man of California and Colorado.

I intended, when I sat down to write, the very first thing I said, to thank you for your wonderful invitation,

seconded so loyally and cordially by Katy, to make my home with you until the time comes if it ever does

comewhen I shall have a home of my own again. And just as simply and wholeheartedly as you made the

offer, I accept it. I am enclosing the address and the receipt for my furniture in storage, and a few lines

ordering it delivered at your house and the bill sent to me. I only kept a few heirlooms and things of Mother's

and Father's that are very precious to me. Whenever Eileen takes her things you can order mine in and let me

Mentioning Eileen makes me think of John. I think of him more frequently than I intend or wish that I did,

but I feel my ninth life is now permanently extinguished concerning him. I thought I detected in your letter,

Linda dear, a hint of fear that he might come back to me and that I might welcome him. If you have any such

feeling in your heart, abandon it, child, because, while I try not to talk about myself, I do want to say that I

rejoice in a family inheritance of legitimate pride. I couldn't give the finest loyalty and comradeship I had to

give to a man, have it returned disdainfully, and then furbish up the pieces and present it over again. If I can

patch those same pieces and so polish and refine them that I can make them, in the old phrase, "as good as

But, Linda, one thing is certain as the hills of morning. Never in my life will any man make any headway

with me again with vague suggestions and innuendoes and hints. If ever any man wants to be anything in my

life, he will speak plainly and say what he wants and thinks and hopes and intends and feels in not more than

twosyllable English. I learned my lesson about the futility of building your house of dreams on a foundation

of sand. Next time I erect a dream house, it is going to have a proper foundation of solid granite. And that

may seem a queer thing for me to say when you know that I am getting the joy in my life, that I do not

hesitate to admit I am, from letters written by a man whose name I don't know. It may be that I don't know

the man, but I certainly am very well acquainted with him, and in some way he seems to me to be taking on

more definite form. I should not be surprised if I were to recognize him the first time I met him face to face.

Linda looked through the skylight and cried out to the stars: "Good heavens! Have I copied Peter too

And in this connection you will want to know how I am progressing in my friendship with the junior partner,

and what kind of motorist I am making. I am still driving twice a week, and lately on Sundays in a larger car,

taking Dana and a newspaper friend of hers along. I think I have driven every hazard that this part of

Linda dear, I know what you're dying to know. You want to know whether Mr. Snow is in the same depths of

mourning as when our acquaintance first began. This, my dear child, is very reprehensible of you. Young

girls with braids down their backsand by the way, Linda, you did not tell me what happened "after the ball

was over." Did you go to school the next morning with braids down your back, or wearing your coronet?

Because on that depends what I have to say to you now; if you went with braids, you're still my little girl

chum, the cleanest, finest kid I have ever known; but if you wore your coronet, then you're a woman and my

equal and my dearest friend, far dearer than Dana even; and I tell you this, Linda, because I want you always

I have tried and tried to visualize you, and can't satisfy my mind as to whether the braids are up or down.

Going on the assumption that they are up, and that life may in the near future begin to hold some interesting

experiences for you, I will tell you this, beloved child: I don't think Mr. Snow is mourning quite so deeply as

he was. I have not been asked, the last four or five trips we have been on, to carry an armload of exquisite

flowers to the shrine of a departed love. I have been privileged to take them home and arrange them in my

room and Dana's. And I haven't heard so much talk about loneliness, and I haven't seen such tired, sad eyes. It

seems to me that a familiar pair of shoulders are squaring up to the world again, and a very kind pair of eyes

are brighter with interest. I don't know how you feel about this; I don't know how I feel about it myself. I am

sure that Eugene Snow is a man who, in the years to come, would line up beside your father and mine, and I

like him immensely. It is merely a case of not liking him less, but of liking my unknown man more. I couldn't

quite commit the sacrilege, Linda dear, of sending you a sample of the letters I am receiving, but they are too

fanciful and charming for any words of mine to describe adequately. I don't know who this man is, or what he

has to offer, or whether he intends to offer anything, but it is a ridiculous fact, Linda, that I would rather sit

with him in a chimney corner of field boulders, on a pine floor, with a palm roof and an Ocotillo candle, than

to glow in the parchmentshielded electric light of the halls of a rich man. In a recent letter, Linda, there was

a reference to a woman who wore "a diadem of crystallized light." It was a beautiful thing and I could not

help taking it personally. It was his way of telling me that he knew me, and knew my tragedy; and, as I said

before, I am beginning to feel that I have him rather definitely located; and I can understand the fine strain in

him that prompted his anonymity, and his reasons for it. Of course I am not sufficiently confident yet to say

anything definite, but my heart is beginning to say things that I sincerely hope my lips never will be forced to

Linda laid down the letter, folded her hands across it, and once more looked at the stars.

"Good gracious!" she said. "I am tincturing those letters with too much Peter. I'll have to tone down a bit.

Next thing I know she will be losing her chance with that wonderful Snow man for a dream. In my efforts to

comfort her I must have gone too far. It is all right to write a gushy love letter and stuff it full of Peter's

whimsical nonsense, but, in the language of the poet, how am I going to 'deliver the goods'? Of course that

talk about Louise Whiting was all well enough. Equally, of course, I outlined and planted the brook and

designed the bridge for Marian, whether she knows it or Peter knows it, or not. If they don't know it, it's about

time they were finding it out. I think it's my job to visit Peter more frequently and see if I can't invent some

way to make him see the light. I will give Katy a hint in the morning. Tomorrow evening I'll go up and have

supper with him and see if he has another article in the stewpan. I like this work with Peter. I like having him

make me dream dreams and see pictures. I like the punch and the virility he puts into my drawings. It's all

right reproducing monkey flowers and lilies for pastime, but for serious business, for real life work, I would

rather do Peter's brainstorming, heartthrilling pictures than my merely pretty ones. On the subject of Peter, I

must remember in the morning to take those old books he gave me to Donald. I believe that from one of them

he is going to get the very material he needs to down the Jap in philosophy. And they are not text books

which proves that Peter must have been digging into the subject and hunted them up in some secondhand

In the hall the next morning Linda stopped Donald and gave him the books. In the early stages of their

friendship she had looked at him under halfclosed lids and waited to see whether he intended stopping to

say a word with her when they passed each other or came down the halls together. She knew that their

acquaintance would be noted and commented upon, and she knew how ready the other girls would be to say

that she was bold and forward, so she was careful to let Donald make the advances, until he had called to her

so often, and had dug flowers and left his friends waiting at her door while he delivered them, that she felt

free to address him as she chose. He had shown any interested person in the high school that he was her

friend, that he was speaking to her exactly as he did to girls he had known from childhood. He was very

popular among the boys and girls of his class and the whole school. His friendship, coming at the time of

Linda's rebellion on the subject of clothes, had developed a tendency to bring her other friendships. Boys who

never had known she was in existence followed Donald's example in stopping her to say a word now and

then. Girls who had politely ignored her now found things to say; and several invitations she had not had

leisure to accept had been sent to her for afternoon and evening entertainments among the young people.

Linda had laid out for herself something of a task in deciding to be the mental leader of her class. There were

good brains in plenty among the other pupils. It was only by work, concentration, and purpose, only by

having a mind keenly alert, by independent investigation and introducing new points of view that she could

hold her prestige. Up to the receipt of her letter containing the offer to publish her book she had been able

rigorously to exclude from her mind the personality and the undertakings of Jane Meredith. She was Linda

Strong in the high school and for an hour or two at her studies. She was Jane Meredith over the desert,

through the canyons, beside the sea, in her Multiflores kitchen or in Katherine O'Donovan's. But this book

offer opened a new train of thought, a new series of plans. She could see her way thanks to her father she

had the material in her mind and the art in her finger tips to materialize what she felt would be even more

attractive in book form than anything her editor had been able to visualize from her material. She knew

herself, she knew her territory so minutely. Frequently she smiled when she read statements in her botanies as

to where plants and vegetables could be found. She knew the high home of the rare and precious snow plant.

She knew the northern limit of the strawberry cactus. She knew where the white sea swallow nested. She

knew where the Monarch butterfly went on his winter migration. She knew where the trapdoor spider, with

cunning past the cunning of any other architect of Nature, built his small, round, silkenlined tower and

hinged his trap door so cleverly that only he could open it from the outside. She had even sat immovable and

watched him erect his house, and she would have given much to see him weave its silver lining.

Linda was fast coming to the place where she felt herself to be one in an interested group of fellow workers.

She no longer gave a thought to what kind of shoes she wore. Other girls were beginning to wear the same

kind. The legislatures of half a dozen states were passing laws regulating the height of heel which might be

worn within their boundaries. Manufacturers were promising for the coming season that suitable shoes would

be built for street wear and mountain climbing, for the sands of the sea and the sands of the desert, and the

sheer face of canyons. The extremely long, dirtsweeping skirts were coming up; the extremely short,

immodest skirts were coming down. A sane and sensible wave seemed to be sweeping the whole country.

Under the impetus of Donald Whiting's struggles to lead his classes and those of other pupils to lead theirs a

higher grade of scholarship was beginning to be developed throughout the high school. Pupils were thinking

less of what they wore and how much amusement they could crowd in, and more about making grades that

would pass them with credit from year to year. The horrors of the war and the disorders following it had

begun to impress upon the young brains growing into maturity the idea that soon it would be their task to take

over the problems that were now vexing the world's greatest statesmen and its wisest and most courageous

women. A tendency was manifesting itself among young people to equip themselves to take a worthy part in

the struggles yet to come. Classmates who had looked with toleration upon Linda's commonsense shoes and

plain dresses because she was her father's daughter, now looked upon her with respect and appreciation

because she started so many interesting subjects for discussion, because she was so rapidly developing into a

creature well worth looking at. Always she would be unusual because of her extreme height, her narrow eyes,

her vivid coloring. But a greater maturity, a fuller figure, had come to be a part of the vision with which one

looked at Linda. In these days no one saw her as she was. Even her schoolmates had fallen into the habit of

Thus far she had been able to keep her identities apart without any difficulty; but the book proposition was so

unexpected, it was such a big thing to result from her modest beginning, that Linda realized that she must

proceed very carefully, she must concentrate with all her might, else her school work would begin to suffer in

favor of the book. Recently so many things had arisen to distract her attention. Many days she had not been

able to keep Eileen's face off her geometry papers; and again she saw Gilman's, anxious and painfilled.

Sometimes she found herself lifting her eyes from tasks upon which she was concentrating with all her might,

and with no previous thought whatever she was searching for Donald Whiting, and when she saw him,

coming into muscular and healthful manhood, she returned to her work with more strength, deeper vision, a

quiet, assured feeling around her heart. Sometimes, over the edge of Literature and Ancient History, Peter

Morrison looked down at her with gravely questioning eyes and dancing imps twisting his mouth muscles,

and Linda paused a second to figure upon what had become an old problem with her. Why did her

wildflower garden make Peter Morrison think of a graveyard? What was buried there besides the feet of her

This day her thoughts were on Peter frequently because she intended to see him that night. She was going to

share with him a supper of baked ham and beans and bread and butter and pickled onions and little nut cakes,

still warm from Katy's oven. She was going to take Katy with her in order that she might see Peter Morrison's

location and the house for his dream lady, growing at the foot of the mountain like a gay orchid homing on a

forest tree. To Linda it was almost a miracle, the rapidity with which a house could be erected in California.

In a few weeks' time she had seen a big cellar scooped out of the plateau, had seen it lined and rising to

foundation height above the surface in solid concrete, faced outside with cracked boulders. She had seen a

framework erected, a rooftree set, and joists and rafters and beams swinging into place. Fretworks of lead and

iron pipe were running everywhere, and wires for electricity. Soon shingles and flooring would be going into

place, and Peter said that when he had finished acrobatic performances on beams and girders and really

stepped out on solid floors where he might tread without fear of breaking any of his legs, he would perform a

"Dear child," said Peter, "when I enter my front door and get to the back on twoinch footing, I positively

feel that I have numerous legs, and I ache almost as badly in the fear that I shall break the two I have, as I

And then he added a few words on a subject of which he had not before spoken to Linda.

"It was like that in France. When we really got into the heat of things and the work was actually being done,

we were not afraid: we were too busy; we were 'supermen.' The time when we were all legs and arms and

head, and all of them were being blown away wholesale was when the shells whined over while we had a rest

hour and were trying to sleep, or in the cold, dim dawn when we stumbled out stiff, hungry, and sleepy. It's

not the REAL THING when it's really occurring that gets one. It's the devils of imagination tormenting the

soul. There is only one thing in this world can happen to me that is really going to be as bad as the things I

Linda looked down Lilac Valley, her eyes absently focusing on Katy busily setting supper on a store box in

"And would a man be telling his heart's best secret to a kid like you?" he asked.

"Now, I call that downright mean," said Linda. "Haven't you noticed that my braids are up? Don't you see a

"Matronliness" was too much for Peter. You could have heard his laugh far down the blue valley.

"It is," agreed Linda. "It means that my braids are up to stay, so hereafter I'm a real woman."

She lingered over the word an instant, glancing whimsically at Peter, a trace of a smile on her lips, then she

made her way down a slant declivity and presently returned with an entire flower plant, new to Peter and of

In the buttonhole of his light linen coat she placed a flower of satin face of purest gold, the five petals

rounded, but sharply tipped, a heavy mass of silk stamens, pollen dusted in the heart. She pushed back the left

side of his coat and taking one of the rough, hairy leaves of the plant she located it over Peter's heart, her

slim, deft fingers patting down the leaf and flattening it out until it lay pasted smooth and tight. As she

worked, she smiled at him challengingly. Peter knew he was experiencing a ceremony of some kind, the

significance of which he must learn. It was the first time Linda had voluntarily touched him. He breathed

"Lovely enough," he said, "to have come from the hills of the stars. Don't make me wait, Linda; help me to

"Because she sticks close to you," she explained. Then startled by the look in Peter's eyes, she cried in swift

change: "Now we are all going to work for a minute. Katy's spreading the lunch. You take this pail and go to

With the eye of experience Linda glanced over the garage deciding that she must ask for clean sheets for the

cot and that the Salvation Army would like the heap of papers. Studying the writing table she heard a faint

Her cry a minute later answered the question. She came from the garage upon Katherine O'Donovan rushing

"I wish you'd look at that pocket. I don't know how long this coat has been hanging there, but there is a nest

Katy promptly retreated to the improvised dining table, seated herself upon an end of it, and raised both feet

She went to the edge of the declivity that cut back to the garage and with a quick movement reversed the coat

This served exactly the purpose Linda had intended. It dislodged the mouse nest and dropped it three feet

below her level, but it did something else upon which Linda had no time to count. It emptied every pocket in

"Oh my gracious!" gasped Linda. "Look what I have done! Katy, come help me quickly; I have to gather up

this stuff; but it's no use; I'll have to take it to Peter and tell him. I couldn't put these things back in the

pockets where his hand will reach for them, because I don't know which came from inside and which came

Linda sprang down and began hastily gathering up everything she could see that had fallen from the coat

pockets. She had almost finished when her fingers chanced upon a very soiled, befigured piece of paper

whose impressed folds showed that it had been carried for some time in an inner pocket. As her fingers

touched this paper her eyes narrowed, her breath came in a gasp. She looked at it a second, irresolute, then

she glanced over the top of the declivity in the direction Peter had taken. He was standing in front of the

building, discussing some matter with the contractor. He had not yet gone to the spring. Shielded by the

embankment with shaking fingers Linda opened the paper barely enough to see that it was Marian's lost sheet

of plans; but it was not as Marian had lost it. It was scored deeply here and there with heavy lines suggestive

of alterations, and the margin was fairly covered with fine figuring. Linda did not know Peter Morrison's

writing or figures. His articles had been typewritten and she had never seen his handwriting. She sat down

suddenly on account of weakened knees, and gazed unseeingly down the length of Lilac Valley, her heart

"Before the Lord!" she gasped. "I THOUGHT there was something mighty familiar even about the skeleton

For a while a mist blurred her eyes. She reached for the coat and started to replace the things she had gathered

"Best time to pull a tooth," she said tersely to a terra cotta red manzanita bush, "is when it aches."

When Peter returned from the spring he was faced by a trembling girl, colorless and trying hard to keep her

voice steady. She held out the coat to him with one hand, the package of papers with the other, the folded

"Mouse nest in your pocket, Peter," she said thickly. "Reversed the coat to shake it out, and spilled your

Then she waited for Peter to be confounded. But Peter was not in the faintest degree troubled about either the

coat or the papers. What did trouble him was the face and the blazing eyes of the girl concerning whom he

Linda thrust the coat and the papers toward him accusingly and stood there wordless but with visible pain in

"That's not my coat, you know. If there is anything distressing about it, don't lay it to me."

"Oh, Peter!" cried Linda, "tell the truth about it. Don't try any evasions. I am so sick of them."

A rather queer light sprang into Peter's eyes. He leaned forward suddenly and caught the coat from Linda's

"Well, if you need an alibi concerning this coat," he said, "I think I can furnish it speedily."

As he talked he whirled the garment around and shot his long arms into the sleeves. Shaking it into place on

his shoulders, he slowly turned in front of Linda and the surprised Katy. The sleeves came halfway to his

wrists and the shoulders slid down over his upper arms. He made such a quaint and ridiculous figure that

Katy burst out laughing. She was very well trained, but she knew Linda was deeply distressed.

"Wake up, lambie!" she cried sharply. "That coat ain't belonging to Mr. Pater Morrison. That gairment is the

"Am I acquitted?" he asked lightly; but his surprised eyes were searching her from braid to toe.

Linda turned from him swiftly. She thrust the packet into a side pocket and started to the garage with the coat.

As she passed inside she slipped down her hand, slid the sheet of plans from the other papers, and slipped it

into the front of her blouse. She hung the coat back where she had found it, then suddenly sat down on the

side of Peter Morrison's couch, white and shaken. Peter thought he heard a peculiar gasp and when he strayed

past the door, casually glancing inward, he saw what he saw, and it brought him to his knees beside Linda

Linda struggled to control her voice; but at last she buried her face in her hands and frankly emitted a sound

"Of all the things I ever thought about you, Linda," he said, "the one thing I never did think was that you

If there was one word in Linda's vocabulary more opprobrious than "nerves," which could be applied to a

woman, it was "hysterics." The great specialist had admitted nerves; hysterics had no standing with him.

Linda herself had no more use for a hysterical woman than she had for a Gila monster. She straightened

suddenly, and in removing her hands from her face she laid one on each of Peter's shoulders.

"Oh, Peter," she wailed, "I am not a hysterical idiot, but I couldn't have stood it if that coat had been yours.

Peter held himself rigidly in the fear that he might disturb the hands that were gripping him.

"I see I have the job of educating these damned field mice as to where they may build with impunity," he said

"Peter," she said affirmatively, "you don't know a thing about that coat, do you?"

Linda thought swiftly. Peter adored his dream house. If she told him that the plans for it had been stolen by

his architect, the house would be ruined for Peter. Anyone could see from the candor of his gaze and the lines

that God and experience had graven on his face that Peter was without guile. Suddenly Linda shot her hands

past Peter's shoulders and brought them together on the back of his neck. She drew his face against hers and

cried: "Oh Peter, I would have been killed if that coat had been yours. I tell you I couldn't have endured it,

One instant she hugged him tight. If her lips did not brush his cheek, Peter deluded himself. Then she sprang

up and ran from the garage. Later he took the coat from its nail, the papers from its pockets, and carefully

looked them over. There was nothing among them that would give him the slightest clue to Linda's conduct.

He looked again, penetratingly, searchingly, for he must learn from them a reason; and no reason was

apparent. With the coat in one hand and the papers in the other he stepped outside.

"Linda," he said, "won't you show me? Won't you tell me? What is there about this to upset you?"

Linda closed her lips and shook her head. Once more Peter sought in her face, in her attitude the information

"Needn't tell me," he said, "that a girl who will face the desert and the mountains and the canyons and the sea

"Well, you should have seen Katy sitting in the midst of our supper with her feet rigidly extended before

her!" cried the girl, struggling to regain her composure. "Put back that coat and come to your supper. It's time

for you to be fed now. The last workman has gone and we'll barely have time to finish nicely and show Katy

Peter came and sat in the place Linda indicated. His mind was whirling. There was something he did not

understand, but in her own time, in her own way, a girl of Linda's poise and selfpossession would tell him

what had occurred that could be responsible for the very peculiar things she had done. In some way she had

experienced a shock too great for her usual selfpossession. The hands with which she fished pickled onions

from the bottle were still unsteady, and the corroboration Peter needed for his thoughts could be found in the

dazed way in which Katy watched Linda as she hovered over her in serving her. But that was not the time. By

and by the time would come. The thing to do was to trust Linda and await its coming. So Peter called on all

the reserve wit and wisdom he had at command. He jested, told stories, and to Linda's satisfaction and Katy's

delight, he ate his supper like a hungry man, frankly enjoying it, and when the meal was finished Peter took

Katy over the house, explaining to her as much detail as was possible at that stage of its construction, while

Linda followed with mute lips and rebellion surging in her heart. When leaving time came, while Katy

packed the Bear Cat, Linda wandered across toward the spring, and Peter, feeling that possibly she might

wish to speak with him, followed her. When he overtook her she looked at him straightly, her eyes showing

"Peter," she said, "that first night you had dinner with us, was Henry Anderson out of your presence one

Peter stopped and studied the ground at his feet intently. Finally he said conclusively: "I would go on oath,

Linda, that he was not. We were all together in the living room, all together in the dining room. We left

"I see," said Linda. "Well, then, when you came back the next morning after Eileen, before you started on

"We came to your house with Gilman," he said. "John started to the front door to tell Miss Eileen that we

were ready. I followed him. Anderson said he would look at the scenery. He must have made a circuit of the

house, because when we came out ready to start, a very few minutes later, he was coming down the other side

"Linda," said Peter quietly, "it is very obvious that something has worried you extremely. Am I in any way

"No, Peter," she said quietly, "I confess I have had a shock, but it is in no way connected with you and there

is nothing you can do about it but forget my foolishness. But I am gladPeter, you will never know how

Then in the friendliest fashion imaginable she reached him her hand and led the way back to the Bear Cat,

their tightly gripped hands swinging between them. As Peter closed the door he looked down on Linda.

"Young woman," he said, "since this country has as yet no nerve specialist to take the place of your

distinguished father, if you have any waves to wave to me tonight, kindly do it before you start or after you

reach the highway. If you take your hands off that steering wheel as you round the boulders and strike that

declivity as I have seen you do heretofore, I won't guarantee that I shall not require a specialist myself."

Linda started to laugh, then she saw Peter's eyes and something in them stopped her suddenly.

"I did not realize that I was taking any risk," she said. "I won't do it again. I will say goodbye to you right

So she shook hands with Peter and drove away. Peter slowly followed down the rough driveway, worn hard

by the wheels of delivery trucks, and stood upon the highest point of the rocky turn, looking after the small

gray car as it slid down the steep declivity. And he wondered if there could have been telepathy in the longing

with which he watched it go, for at the level roadway that followed between the cultivated land out to the

highway Linda stopped the car, stood up in it, and turning, looked back straight to the spot upon which Peter

stood. She waved both hands to him, and then gracefully and beautifully, with outstretched, fluttering fingers

she made him the sign of birds flying home. And with the whimsy in his soul uppermost, Peter reflected, as

he turned back for a microscopic examination of Henry Anderson's coat and the contents of its pockets, that

there was one bird above all others which made him think of Linda; but he could not at the moment feather

Katherine O'Donovan. And then he further reflected as he climbed the hill that if it had to be done the best he

Linda looked the garage over very carefully when she put away the Bear Cat. When she closed the garage

doors she was particular about the locks. As she came through the kitchen she said to Katy, busy with the

"A dale too many of the squareheaded haythens. I am pestered to death with them. They used to come jist to

water the lawn but now they want to crane the rugs; they want to do the wash. They are willing to crane

house. They want to get into the garage; they insist on washing the car. If they can't wash it they jist want to

"Well, I have had two good months of it," said Katy; "that is, it started two months ago. The past month has

been workin' up and the last ten days it seemed to me they was a Jap on the back steps oftener than they was a

stray cat, and I ain't no truck with ayther of them. They give me jist about the same falin'. Between the two I

"Well, Katy," said Linda, "let me tell you this: the next time you go there for anything take a good look for

Japs before you open the door. Get what you want and get out as quickly as possible and be sure, Katy,

"What's any of them little haythen been coin' to scare ye, missy?" she demanded belligerently. "Don't you

think I'm afraid of them! Comes any of them around me and I'll take my mopstick over the heads of them."

"And you'll break a perfectly good mopstick and not hurt the Jap when you do it," said Linda. "There's an

undercurrent of something deep and subtle going on in this country right now, Katy. When Japan sends

college professors to work in our kitchens and relatives of her greatest statesmen to serve our tables, you can

depend on it she is not doing it for the money that is paid them. If California does not wake up very shortly

and very thoroughly she is going to pay an awful price for the luxury she is experiencing while she pampers

herself with the service of the Japanese, just as the South has pampered herself for generations with the

service of the Negroes. When the Negroes learn what there is to know, then the day of retribution will be at

hand. And this is not croaking, Katy. It is the truest gospel that was ever preached. Keep your eyes wide open

for Japs. Keep your doors locked, and if you see one prowling around the garage and don't know what he is

Linda climbed the stairs to her workroom, plumped down at the table, set her chin in her palms, and lost

herself in thought. For half an hour she sat immovable, staring at her caricature of Eileen through narrowed

I am writing as the most intimate woman friend of Marian Thorne. As such, I have spent much thought trying

to figure out exactly the reason for the decision in your recent architectural competition; why a man should

think of such a number of very personal, intimate touches that, from familiarity with them, I know that Miss

Thorne had incorporated in her plans, and why his winning house should be her winning house, merely

Today I have found the answer, which I am forwarding to you, knowing that you will understand exactly

what should be done. Enclosed you will find one of the first rough s};etches Marian made of her plans. In

some mysterious manner it was lost on a night when your prizewinning architect had dinner at our house

where Miss Thorne was also a guest. Before retiring she showed to me and explained the plans with which

she hoped to win your competition. In the morning I packed her suitcase and handed it to the porter of her

train. When she arrived at San Francisco she found that the enclosed sheet was missing.

This afternoon tidying a garage in which Mr. Peter Morrison, the author, is living while Henry Anderson

completes a residence he is building for him near my home, I reversed a coat belonging to Henry Anderson to

dislodge from its pocket the nest of a field mouse. In so doing I emptied all the pockets, and in gathering up

I think nothing more need be said on my part save that I understood the winning plan was to become the

property of Nicholson and Snow. Without waiting to see whether these plans would win or not, Henry

Anderson has them three fourths of the way materialized in Mr. Morrison's residence in Lilac Valley which is

You probably have heard Marian speak of me, and from her you may obtain any information you might care

I am mailing the sketch to you rather than to Marian because I feel that you are the party most deeply

interested in a business way, and I hope, too, that you will be interested in protecting my very dear friend

When Peter Morrison finally gave up looking in the pockets of Henry Anderson's coat for enlightenment

concerning Linda's conduct, it was with his mind settled on one point. There was nothing in the coat now that

could possibly have startled the girl or annoyed her. Whatever had been there that caused her extremely

peculiar conduct she had carried away with her. Peter had settled convictions concerning Linda. From the

first instant he had looked into her clear young eyes as she stood in Multiflores Canyon triumphantly holding

aloft the Cotyledon in one hand and with the other struggling to induce the skirt of her blouse to resume its

proper location beneath the band of her trousers, he had felt that her heart and her mind were as clear and

cool and businesslike as the energetic mountain stream hurrying past her. Above all others, "straight" was the

one adjective he probably would have applied to her. Whatever she had taken from Henry's pockets was

something that concerned her. If she took anything, she had a right to take it; of that Peter was unalterably

certain. He remembered that a few days before she practically had admitted to him that Anderson had

annoyed her, and a slow anger began to surge up in Peter's carefully regulated heart. His thoughts were

extremely busy, but the thing he thought most frequently and most forcefully was that he would thoroughly

enjoy taking Henry Anderson by the scruff of the neck, leading him to the sheerest part of his own particular

"It takes these youngsters to rush in and raise the devil where there's no necessity for anything to happen if

He mulled over the problem for several days, and then he decided he should see Linda, and with his first look

into her straightforward eyes, from the tones of her voice and the carriage of her head he would know

whether the annoyance persisted. About the customary time for her to return from school Peter started on foot

down the short cut between his home and the Strong residence. He was following a footpath rounding the

base of the mountain, crossing and recrossing the enthusiastic mountain stream as it speeded toward the

valley, when a flash of color on the farther side of the brook attracted him. He stopped, then hastily sprang

across the water, climbed a few yards, and, after skirting a heavy clump of bushes, looked at Linda sitting

beside thema most astonishing Linda, appearing small and humble, very much tucked away, unrestrained

tears rolling down her cheeks, a wet handkerchief wadded in one hand, a packet of letters in her lap. A long

"No, Peter," she sobbed, "I had come this far on my way to you when my courage gave out."

"Now stop distressing yourself," he said authoritatively. "You youngsters do take life so seriously. The only

thing that could have happened to you worth your shedding a tear over can't possibly have happened; so stop

this waste of good material. Tears are very precious things, Linda. They ought to be the most unusual things

in life. Now tell me something. Were you coming to me about that matter that worried you the other

"No," she said, "I have turned that matter over where it belongs. I have nothing further to do with it. I'll

confess to you I took a paper from among those that fell from Henry Anderson's pocket. It was not his. He

had no right to have it. He couldn't possibly have come by it honorably or without knowing what it was. I

took the liberty to put it where it belongs, or at least where it seemed to me that it belongs. That is all over."

"Then something else has happened?" asked Peter. "Something connected with the package of letters in your

"Peter, I have done something perfectly awful," she confessed. "I never in this world meant to do it. I

wouldn't have done it for anything. I have got myself into the dreadfullest mess, and I don't know how to get

out. When I couldn't stand it another minute I started right to you, Peter, just like I'd have started to my father

"I see," said Peter, deeply interested in the toe of his shoe. "You depended on my age and worldly experience

and my unconcealed devotion to your interests, which is exactly what you should do, my dear. Now tell me.

Dry your eyes and tell me, and whatever it is I'll fix it all right and happily for you. I'll swear to do it if you

"Oh, Peter, you dear!" she cried. "Peter, I'll just kneel and kiss your hands if you can fix this for me."

"Make it snappy!" he said tersely. "The sooner your troubles are out of your system the better you'll feel.

"Oh, Peter," quavered Linda, "you know how I love Marian. You have seen her and I have told you over and

"I have told you how, after years of devotion to Marian, John Gilman let Eileen make a perfect rag of him

and tie him into any kind of knot she chose. Peter, when Marian left here she had lost everything on earth but

a little dab of money. She had lost a father who was fine enough to be my father's best friend. She had lost a

mother who was fine enough to rear Marian to what she is. She had lost them in a horrible way that left her

room for a million fancies and regrets: 'if I had done this,' or 'if I had done that,' or 'if I had taken another

road.' And when she went away she knew definitely she had lost the first and only love of her heart; and I

knew, because she was so sensitive and so fine, I knew, better than anybody living, how she COULD be hurt;

and I thought if I could fix some scheme that would entertain her and take her mind off herself and make her

feel appreciated only for a little whileI knew in all reason, Peter, when she got out in the world where men

would see her and see how beautiful and fine she is, there would be somebody who would want her quickly.

All the time I have thought that when she came back, YOU would want her. Peter, I fibbed when I said I was

setting your brook for Louise Whiting. I was not. I don't know Louise Whiting. She is nothing to me. I was

setting it for you and Marian. It was a WHITE head I saw among the iris marching down your creek bank, not

"Oh, I have done the awfullest thing," wailed Linda, "the most unforgivable thing!"

She reached across and laid hold of the hand next her, and realizing that she needed it for strength and

"I had a typewriter: I could. I began writing her letters, the kind of letters that I thought would interest her and

"You didn't sign my name to them, did you, Linda?" asked Peter in a dry, breathless voice.

"No, Peter," said Linda, "I did not do that, I did worse. Oh, I did a whole lot worse!"

I wanted to make them interesting. And of course I could not do it by myself. I am nothing but a copycat. I

just quoted a lot of things I had heard you say; and I did worse than that, Peter. I watched the little whimsy

lines around your mouth and I tried to interpret the perfectly lovely things they would make you say to a

woman if you loved her and were building a dream house for her. And oh, Peter, it's too ghastly; I don't

"This is pretty serious business, Linda," said Peter gravely. "Having gone this far you are in honor bound to

finish. It would not be fair to leave me with half a truth. What is the result of this impersonation?"

"Oh, Peter," sobbed Linda, breaking down again, "you're going to hate me; I know you're going to hate me

and Marian's going to hate me; and I didn't mean a thing but the kindest thing in all the world."

"Don't talk like that, Linda," said Peter. "If your friend is all you say she is, she is bound to understand. And

as for me, I am not very likely to misjudge you. But be quick about it. What did you do, Linda?"

"Why, I just wrote these letters that I am telling you about," said Linda, "and I said the things that I thought

would comfort her and entertain her and help with her work; and these are the answers that she wrote me, and

I don't think I realized till last night that she was truly attributing them to any one man, truly believing in

them. Oh, Peter, I wasn't asleep a minute all last night, and for the first time I failed in my lessons today."

"She liked the letters, Peter. They meant all I intended them to and they must have meant something I never

could have imagined. And in San Francisco one of the firm where she studies a very fine man she says he

is, Peter; I can see that in every way he would be quite right for her; and I had a letter from her last night, and,

Peter, he had asked her to marry him, to have a lifelong chance at work she's crazy about. He had offered her

good taste could afford. He had offered her the mothering of his little daughter; and she refused him, Peter,

refused him because she is in love, with all the love there is left in her disappointed, hurt heart, with the

personality that these letters represent to her; and that personality is yours, Peter. I stole it from you. I copied

it into those letters. I'm not straight. I'm not fair. I wasn't honest with her. I wasn't honest with you. I'll just

have to take off front the top of the highest mountain or sink in the deepest place in the sea, Peter. I thought I

was straight. I thought I was honorable I have made Donald believe that I was. If I have to tell him the truth

about this he won't want to wear my flower any more. I shall know all the things that Marian has suffered,

and a thousand times worse, because she was not to blame; she had nothing with which to reproach herself."

Peter put an arm across Linda's shoulders and drew her up to him. For a long, bitter moment he thought

deeply, and then he said hoarsely: "Now calm down, Linda. You're making an extremely high mountain out

of an extremely shallow gopher hole. You haven't done anything irreparable. I see the whole situation. You

are sure your friend has finally refused this offer she has had on account of these letters you have written?"

Suddenly Linda relaxed. She leaned her warm young body against Peter. She laid her tired head on his

shoulder. She slipped the top letter of the packet in her lap from under its band, opened it, and held it before

"It's all too evident," he said quietly, "that you have taught her that there is a man in this world more to her

liking than John Gilman ever has been. When it came to materializing the man, Linda, what was your idea?

"I thought it would be suitable and you would be perfectly happy," sobbed Linda, "and that way I could have

And then she lifted her tearspilling, wonderful eyes, wide open, to Peter's, and demanded: "But, oh Peter, I

almost dead. I have said you were a rock, and you are a rock. peter, can you get me out of this?"

"Sure," said Peter grimly. "Merely a case of living up to your blue china, even if it happens to be in the form

of hieroglyphics instead of baked pottery. Give me the letters, Linda. Give me a few days to study them.

Exchange typewriters with me so I can have the same machine. Give me some of the paper on which you

have been writing and the address you have been using, and I'll guarantee to get you out of this in some way

that will leave you Donald, and your friendship with Marian quite as good as new."

At that juncture Peter might have been kissed, but his neck was very stiff and his head was very high and his

eyes were on a fardistant hilltop from which at that minute he could not seem to gather any particular help.

"Would it be your idea," he said, "that by reading these letters I could gain sufficient knowledge of what has

Peter reached in his side pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. He shook it from its folds and dried her

"Now stop this nerve strain and this foolishness," he said tersely. "You have done a very wonderful thing for

me. It is barely possible that Marian Thorne is not my dream woman, but we can't always have our dreams in

this world, and if I could not have mine, truly and candidly, Linda, so far as I have lived my life, I would

"Oh, goody goody, Peter!" she cried. "How joyous! Can it be possible that my bungling is coming out right

"Sure, right for me," said Linda eagerly. "Of course it's right for me when it's right for you and Marian. And

since it's not my secret alone I don't think it would be quite honorable to tell Donald about it. What hurts

"All right then, Linda," said Peter, rising, "give me the letters and bring me the machine and the paper. Give

me the joyous details and tell me when I am expected to send in my first letter in propria persona?',

"Oh, Peter," cried Linda, beaming on him, "oh, Peter, you are a rock! I do put my trust in you."

"Then God help me," said Peter, "for whatever happens, your trust in me shall not be betrayed, Linda."

Possibly because she wished to eliminate herself from the offices of Nicholson and Snow for a few days,

possibly because her finely attuned nature felt the call, Marian Thorne boarded a train that carried her to Los

Angeles. She stepped from it at ten o'clock in the morning, and by the streetcar route made her way to Lilac

Valley. When she arrived she realized that she could not see Linda before, possibly, three in the afternoon.

She entered a restaurant, had a small lunch box packed, and leaving her dressing case, she set off down the

valley toward the mountains. She had need of their strength, their quiet and their healing. To the one

particular spot where she had found comfort in Lilac Valley her feet led her. By paths of her own, much

overgrown for want of recent usage, she passed through the cultivated fields, left the roadway, and began to

climb. When she reached the stream flowing down the rugged hillside, she stopped to rest for a while, and her

mind was in a tumult. In one minute she was seeing the bitterly disappointed face of a lonely, sensitive man

whose first wound had been reopened by the making of another possibly quite as deep; and at the next her

heart was throbbing because Linda had succeeded in transferring the living Peter to paper.

The time had come when Marian felt that she would know the personality embodied in the letters she had

been receiving; and in the past few days her mind had been fixing tenaciously upon Peter

Morrison. And the feeling concerning which she had written Linda had taken possession of her. Wealth did

not matter; position did not matter. Losing the love of a good man did not matter But the mind and the heart

and the personality behind the letters she had been receiving did matter. She thought long and seriously When

at last she arose she had arrived at the conclusion that she had done the right thing, no matter whether the

wonderful letters she had received went on and offered her love or not, no matter about anything. She must

merely live and do the best she could, until the writer of those letters chose to disclose himself and say what

So Marian followed her own path beside the creek until she neared its head, which was a big, gushing icy

spring at the foot of the mountain keeping watch over the small plateau that in her heart she had thought of as

hers for years. As she neared the location strange sounds began to reach her, voices of men, clanging of

hammers, the rip of saws. A look of deep consternation overspread her face. She listened an instant and then

began to run. When she broke through the rank foliage flourishing from the waters of the spring and looked

out on the plateau what she saw was Peter Morrison's house in the process of being floored and shingled. For

a minute Marian was physically ill. Her heart hurt until her hand crept to her side in an effort to soothe it.

Before she asked the question of a man coming to the spring with a pail in his hand, she knew the answer. It

was Peter Morrison's house. Marian sprang across the brook, climbed to the temporary roadway, and walked

down in front of the building. She stood looking at it intently. It was in a rough stage, but much disguise is

needed to prevent a mother from knowing her own child. Marian's dark eyes began to widen and to blaze.

She walked up to the front of the house and found that rough flooring had been laid so that she could go over

the first floor. When she had done this she left the back door a deeply indignant woman.

"There is some connection," she told herself tersely, "between my lost sketch and this house, which is merely

a lefttoright rehearsal of my plans; and it's the same plan with which Henry Anderson won the Nicholson

and Snow prize money and the still more valuable honor of being the prize winner. What I want to know is

Stepping from the back door, Marian followed the wellworn pathway that led to the garage, looking right

and left for Peter, and she was wondering what she would say to him if she met him. She was thinking that

perhaps she had better return to San Francisco and talk the matter over with Mr. Snow before she said

anything to anyone else; by this time she had reached the garage and stood in its wideopen door. She looked

in at the cot, left just as someone had arisen from it, at the row of clothing hanging on a rough wooden rack at

the back, at the piled boxes, at the big table, knocked together from rough lumber, in the center, scattered and

piled with books and magazines; and then her eyes fixed intently on a packet lying on the table beside a

typewriter and a stack of paper and envelopes. She walked over and picked up the packet. As she had known

the instant she saw them, they were her letters. She stood an instant holding them in her hand, a dazed

expression on her face. Mechanically she reached out and laid her hands on the closed typewriter to steady

herself. Something about it appealed to her as familiar. She looked at it closely, then she lifted the cover and

examined the machine. It was the same machine that had stood for years in Doctor Strong's library, a machine

upon which she had typed business letters for her own father, and sometimes she had copied lectures and

book manuscript on it for Doctor Strong. Until his house was completed and his belongings arrived, Peter

undoubtedly had borrowed it. Suddenly a wild desire to escape swept over Marian. Her first thought was of

her feelings. She was angry, and justly so. In her heart she had begun to feel that the letters she was receiving

Could it be possible that in their one meeting Peter had decided that she was his dream woman, that in some

way he had secured that rough sketch of her plans, and from them was preparing her dream house for her?

The thought sped through her brain that he was something more than human to have secured those plans, to

have found that secluded and choice location. For an instant she forgot the loss of the competition in trying to

comprehend the wonder of finding her own particular house fitting her own particular location as naturally as

She tried to replace the package of letters exactly as she had found them. On tiptoe she slipped back to the

door and looked searchingly down the road, around, and as far as possible through the house. Then she

gathered her skirts, stepped from the garage, and began the process of effacing herself on the mountain side

From clump to clump of the thickest bushes, crouching below the sage and greasewood, pausing to rest

behind lilac and elder, with. out regard for her traveling suit or her beautifully shod feet, Marian fled from her

location. When at last she felt that she was completely hidden and at least a mile from the spot, she dropped

panting on a boulder, brushing the debris from her skirts, lifting trembling hands to straighten her hat, and

ruefully contemplating her shoes. Then she tried to think in a calm, dispassionate, and reasonable manner, but

she found it a most difficult process. Her mind was not well ordered, neither was it at her command. It

whirled and shot off at unexpected tangents and danced as irresponsibly as a grasshopper from one place to

another. The flying leaps it took ranged from San Francisco to Lilac Valley, from her location upon which

Peter Morrison was building her house, to Linda. Even John Gilman obtruded himself once more. At one

minute she was experiencing a raging indignation against Henry Anderson. How had he secured her plan? At

another she was trying to figure dispassionately what connection Peter Morrison could have had with the

building of his house upon her plan. Every time Peter came into the equation her heart arose in his defense. In

some way his share in the proceeding was all right. He had cared for her and he had done what he thought

would please her. Therefore she must be pleased, although forced to admit to herself that she would have

She was hungry to see Linda. She wanted Katherine O'Donovan to feed her and fuss over her and entertain

her with her mellow Irish brogue; but if she went to them and disclosed her presence in the valley, Peter

would know about it, and if he intended the building he was erecting as a wonderful surprise for her, then she

must not spoil his joy. Plan in any way she could, Marian could see no course left to her other than to slip

back to the station and return to San Francisco without meeting any of her friends. She hurriedly ate her

lunch, again straightened her clothing, went to the restaurant for her traveling bag, and took the car for the

station where she waited for a return train to San Francisco She bought a paper and tried to concentrate upon

it in an effort to take her mind from her own problems so that, when she returned to them, she would be better

able to think clearly, to reason justly, to act wisely. She was very glad when her train came and she was

started on her way northward. At the first siding upon which it stopped to allow the passing of a southbound

limited, she was certain that as the cars flashed by, in one of them she saw Eugene Snow. She was so certain

that when she reached the city she immediately called the office and asked for Mr. Snow only to be told that

he had gone away for a day or two on business. After that Marian's thought was confused to the point of

It would be difficult to explain precisely the state of mind in which Linda, upon arriving at her home that

afternoon, received from Katy the information that a man named Snow had been waiting an hour for her in

the living room. Linda's appearance was that of a person so astonished that Katy sidled up to her giving

"Ye know, lambie," she said with elaborate indifference, "ye aren't havin' to see anybody ye don't want to. If

it's somebody intrudin' himself on ye, just say the word and I'll fire him; higher than Guilderoy's kite I'll be

"No, I must see him, Katy," said Linda quietly. "And have something specially nice for dinner. Very likely

I'll take him to see Peter Morrison's house and possibly I'll ask him and Peter to dinner. He is a San Francisco

architect from the firm where Marian takes her lessons, and it's business about Peter's house. I was surprised,

"Katherine O'Donovan, old dear," she said, "if we do come back for dinner, concentrate on Mr. Snow and

study him. Scrutinize, Katy! It's a bully word. Scrutinize closely. To add one more to our long lists of secrets,

here's another. He's the man I told you about who has asked Marian to marry him, and Marian has refused

Then Linda felt the tensing of every muscle in Katy's body. She saw the lift of her head, the incredulous,

"No," said Linda, "I am not meaning John Gilman. You should know Marian well enough to know that."

"Well, ye ought to know yourself well enough to know that they ain't anybody else around these diggin's that

"I imagine Marian will get pretty much whom she wants," said Linda laughingly. "In your heart, Katy, you

know that Marian need not have lost John Gilman if she had not deliberately let him go. If she had been

willing to meet Eileen on her own ground and to play the game with her, it wouldn't have happened. Marian

When Linda drew back the portiere and stepped into the living room Eugene Snow rose to meet her. What

either of them expected it might be difficult to explain. Knowing so little of each other, it is very possible that

they had no visualizations. What Snow saw was what everyone saw who looked at Lindaa girl arrestingly

unusual. With Linda lay the advantage by far, since she had Marian's letters for a background. What she saw

was a tall man, slender, and about him there was to Linda a strong appeal. As she looked into his eyes, she

could feel the double hurt that Fate had dealt him. She thought she could fathom the fineness in his nature

that had led him to made homebuilding his chosen occupation. Instantly she liked him. With only one look

deep into his eyes she was on his side. She stretched out both her hands and advanced.

"Now isn't this the finest thing of you?" she said. "I am so glad that you came. I'll tell you word for word

"You know," she said, "that is a joke. I am so unfamiliar with this room that I haven't any favorite chair. I'll

Then for a few minutes Linda talked frankly. She answered Eugene Snow's every question unhesitatingly and

comprehensively. Together they ascended the stairs, and in the guest room she showed him the table at which

she and Marian had studied the sketches of plans, and exactly where they had left them lying overnight.

"The one thing I can't be explicit about," said Linda, "is how many sheets were there in the morning. We had

stayed awake so late talking, that we overslept. I packed Marian's bag while she dressed. I snatched up what

there were without realizing whether there were two sheets or three, laid them in the flat bottom of the case,

"I see," said Mr. Snow comprehendingly. "Now let's experiment a little. Of course the window before that

"And what about the door opening into the hall? Can you tell me whether it was closed or open?"

"It was open," said Linda. "We left it slightly ajar to create a draft; the night was warm."

"Is there anyone about the house," inquired Mr. Snow, "who could tell us certainly whether that window was

"Of course," said Linda. "Our housekeeper, Katherine O'Donovan, would know. When we go down we'll ask

On their return to the living room, for the first time in her life Linda rang for Katy. She hesitated an instant

before she did it. It would be establishing a relationship that never before had existed between them. She

always had gone to Katy as she would have, gone to her mother. She would have gone to her now, but she

wanted Katy to make her appearance and give her information without the possibility of previous discussion.

Katy answered the bell almost at once. Linda went to her side and reached her arm across her shoulders.

"Katy," she said, "this is Mr. Eugene Snow of San Francisco He is interested in finding out exactly what

became of that lost plan of Marian's that we have looked for so carefully. Put on your thinking cap, old dear,

"In the meantime," said Linda, "I'll be excused and go bring round the Bear Cat."

"I have only one question to ask you," said Mr. Snow. "Can you recall whether, for any reason, there was a

screen out of the guestroom window directly in front of which the reading table was standing the night Miss

She was taking the inventory she had been told to take. She was deciding, as instantly as Linda had done, that

she liked this man. Years, appearance, everything about him appealed to Katy as being exactly right for

Marian; and her cunning Irish mind was leaping and flying and tugging at the leash that thirty years of

"Sure," she repeated, "the wildest santana that ever roared over us just caught that screen and landed it slam

against the side of the garage, and it set inside for three days till I could get a workman to go up the outside

"Not that I know of," said Katy. "She is a schoolgirl, you know, off early in the morning, back and up to her

room, the busiest youngster the valley knows; and coin' a dale of good she is, too. It was Miss Eileen that

heard the screen ripped out and told me it was gone. She's the one who looked after the housekapin' and paid

the bills. She knew all about it. If 'twould be helpin' Miss Marian any about findin' them plans we've

ransacked the premises for, I couldn't see any reason why Miss Eileen wouldn't tell ye the same as I'm tellin'

ye, and her housekapin' accounts and her cheque book would show she paid the carpenter, if it's legal

"Thank you, Katy," said Mr. Snow. "I hope nothing of that kind will occur. A great wrong has been

perpetrated, but we must find some way to right it without involving such extremely nice young women in

Katy folded her arms and raised her head. All her share of the blarney of Ireland began to roll from the

"Now, the nice man ye are, to be seein' the beauty of them girls so quick," she said. "The good Lord airly in

the mornin' of creation thought them out when He was jist fresh from rist, and the material was none

shopworn. They ain't ladies like 'em anywhere else in the whole of California, and belave me, a many rale

ladies have I seen in my time. Ye can jist make up your mind that Miss Linda is the broth of the earth. She is

her father's own child and she is like him as two pase in the pod. And Marian growed beside her, and much of

a hand I've had in her raisin' meself, and well I'm knowin' how fine she is and what a juel she'd be, set on any

man's hearthstone. I'm wonderin'," said Katy challengingly, "if you're the Mr. Snow at whose place she is

takin' her lessons, and if ye are, I'm wonderin' if ye ain't goin' to use the good judgment to set her, like the juel

Eugene Snow looked at Katy intently. He was not accustomed to discussing his affairs with household

helpers, but he could not look at Katy without there remaining in his vision the forte of Linda standing beside

her, a reassuring arm stretched across her shoulders, the manner in which she had presented her and then left

her that she might be free to answer as she chose with out her young mistress even knowing exactly what was

"I might try to do that very thing," he said, "but, you know, a wonderful woman is an animated jewel. You

can't manufacture a setting and put her in and tighten the clasps without her consent."

"But suppose," he said, "that the particular jewel you're discussing prefers to select her own setting, and mine

"Well, they's jist one thing," said Katy. Her heels left the floor involuntarily; she arose on her tiptoes; her

shoulders came up, and her head lifted to a height it never had known before. "They's jist one thing," she said.

"Aside from Miss Linda, who is my very own child that I have washed and I have combed and I have done

for since she was a toddlin' fouryearold, they ain't no woman in this world I would go as far for as I would

for Miss Marian; but I'm tellin' ye now, ye Mr. Eujane Snow, that they's one thing I don't lend no countenance

to. I am sorry she has had the cold, cruel luck that she has, but I ain't sorry enough that I'm goin' to stand for

her droppin' herself into the place where she doesn't belong. If the good Lord ain't give her the sense to see

that you're jist the image of the man that would be jist exactly right for her, somebody had better be tellin' her

so. Anyway, if Miss Linda is takin' ye up to the house that Mr. Pater Morrison is buildin' and the Pater man is

there, I would advise ye to cast your most discernin' eye on that gintleman. Ye watch him jist one minute

when he looks at the young missus and he thinks nobody ain't observing him, and ye'll see what ye'll see. If

ye want Marian, ye jist go on and take her. I'm not carin' whether ye use a club or white vi'lets, but don't ye be

lettin' Marian Thorne get no idea into her head that she is goin' to take Mr. Pater Morrison, because

concernin' Pater I know what I know, and I ain't goin' to stand by and see things goin' wrong for want of

spakin' up. Now if you're a wise man, ye don't nade nothing further said on the subject."

Eugene Snow thought intently for a few moments. His vision centered on Katherine O'Donovan's face.

"Jist as sure as the sun's sure, and the mountains, and the seaSons come and go," said Katy with finality.

"Watch him and you'll see it stickin' out all over him. I have picked him for me boss, and it's jist adorin' that

"She ain't nothing but a ganglin' school kid, adorin' the spade with which she can shoot around that Bear Cat

of hers, and race the canyons, and the rely lovely things she can strike on paper with her pencil and light up

with her joyous colors. Her day and her hour ain't come, and the Pater man's that fine he won't lay a finger on

her to wake her up when she has a year yet of her schoolin' before her. But in the manetime it's my job to

stand guard as I'm standin' right now. I'm tellin' ye frank and fair. Ye go on and take Marian Thorne because

ye ought to have her. If she's got any idea in her head that she's goin' to have Pater Morrison, she'll have to

Eugene Snow held out his hand and started to the front door in answer to the growl of the Bear Cat. As he

came down the steps and advanced to the car, Linda, with the quick eye that had been one of her special gifts

as a birthright, noted a change in him. He seemed to have been keyed up and toned up. There was a different

expression on his face. There was buoyancy in his step. There was a visible determination in his eye. He took

the seat beside her and Linda started the car. She looked at him interrogatively.

"There was a crackajack a few days before," said Linda. "It blew over some trees in the lot next to us."

"Exactly," said Snow; "and it plucked a screen from your guestroom window. Katy thinks that the cheque to

the carpenter and the cost of the repairs will be in your sister's account books."

"Um hm," nodded Linda. "Well, that simplifies matters, because Peter Morrison is going to tell you about a

"I think so," said Linda, "but I want you to see Peter's house for yourself, since I understand that according to

your contract the rights to reproduce these particular plans remained with you after you had paid prize money

"Most certainly," said Mr. Snow. "We should have that much to show for our share of the transaction."

"It's a queer thing," said Linda. "You would have to know me a long time, and perhaps know under what

conditions I have been reared in order to understand a feeling that I frequently have concerning people. I

tobogganed down a sheer side of Multiflores Canyon one day without my path having been previously

prepared, and I very nearly landed in the automobile that carried Henry Anderson and Peter Morrison on their

first trip to Lilac Valley. I was much interested in preserving the integrity of my neck. I fervently hoped not

to break more than a dozen of my legs and arms, and was forced to bring down intact the finest Cotyledon

pulverulenta that Daddy or I had found in fourteen years of collecting in California. I am telling you all this

that you may see why I might have been excused for not having been minutely observant of my surroundings

when I landed. But what I did observe was a chilly, caterpillary sensation chasing up my spine the instant I

met the eyes of Henry Anderson. In that instant I said to myself that I would not trust him, that I did not like

"And what about his companion?" asked Eugene Snow lightly. "Oh, Peter?" said Linda. There was a caress in

her pronunciation of the name. "Why, Peter is a rock. The instant I deposited my Cotyledon in a safe place I

would have put my hand in Peter Morrison's and started around the world if he had asked me to go. There is

"And there is one thing about this disagreeable business," said Linda. "It was not Peter's coat that had the plan

in it. He knew nothing about it. He has had his full service of stiff war work, and he has been knocking

around big cities in newspaper work, and now he has come home to Lilac Valley to 'set up his rest,' as in the

hymn book, you know. He built his garage first and he is living in it because he so loves this house of his that

he has to be present to watch it grow in minutes" detail. Once on a time I saw a great wizard walking along

the sidewalk, and he looked exactly like any man. He might have been you so far as anything different from

"What is on my mind is this," she said. "I don't think Peter could quite afford the amount of ground he has

bought, and the house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations. It may take him

two or three years to come even on it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that if we go to

him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big

heart is going to be wrung, how his homehouse that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a

weighty Old Man of the Sea clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. Eugene Snow, that you're enough of a

wizard to examine this house and to satisfy yourself as to whether it's an infringement of your plans or not,

Eugene Snow reached across and closed a hand over the one of Linda's nearest him on the steering wheel.

"You very decent kid, you," he said appreciatively. "I certainly am enough of a wizard to save your Peter man

"Oh, but he is not my Peter man," said Linda. "We are only the best friends in the world. Really and truly, if

"Is he?" asked Mr. Snow interestedly. And then he added very casually, in the most offhand mannerhe said

it more to an orange orchard through which they were passing than he said it to Linda"I have very grave

doubts about that. I think there must be some slight complication that will have to be cleared up."

"Indeed no," she said emphatically. "I don't think he has just told Marian yet, but I am very sure that he cares

for her more than for any other woman, and I am equally sure she cares for him; and nothing could be more

Linda put the Bear Cat at the mountain, crept around the road, skirted the boulders, and stopped halfway to

the garage. And there, in a low tone, she indicated to Mr. Snow where they had lunched, when she found the

plans, how she had brought out the coat, where she had emptied the mouse nest. Then she stepped from the

car and hallooed for Peter. Peter came hurrying from the garage, and Eugene Snow was swift in his mental

inventory. It coincided exactly with Linda's. He would have been willing to join hands with Peter and start

around the world, quite convinced of the fairness of the outcome, with no greater acquaintance than one

intent look at Peter, one grip of his sure hand. After that he began to act on Katy's hint, and in a very short

time he had convinced himself that she was right. Maybe Peter tried to absorb himself in the plans he was

going over, in the house he was proud to show the great architect; but it seemed to the man he was

entertaining that his glance scarcely left Linda, that he was so preoccupied with where she went and what she

did that he was like a juggler keeping two mental balls in the air at the same time.

It seemed to Peter a natural thing that, the architect being in the city on business, he should run out to call on

Miss Thorne's dearest friend It seemed to him equally natural that Linda should bring him to see a house in

which she was so kindly interesting herself. And just when Peter was most dexterous in his juggling, just

when he was trying to explain the very wonderful stepsaving' timesaving, rational kitchen arrangements

and at the same time watch Linda on her course down to the spring, the architect halted him with a jerk.

Eugene Snow stood very straight, his hands in his coat pockets, looking, Peter supposed, with interest at the

arrangements of kitchen conveniences. His next terse sentence fairly staggered Peter. He looked him straight

in the eye and inquired casually: "Chosen your dream woman to fit your house, Morrison?"

Peter was too surprised to conceal his feelings. His jaws snapped together; a belligerent look sprang into his

"I have had a good deal to do with houses," continued Mr. Snow. "They are my life work. I find that

invariably they are built for a woman. Almost always they are built from her plans, and for her pleasure. It's a

new house, a unique house, a wonderful house you're evolving here. It must be truly a wonderful woman

That was a nasty little trap. With his years and worldly experience Peter should not have fallen into it; but all

men are children when they are sick, heart sick or body sick, and Peter was a very sick man at that minute. He

had been addressed in such a frank and casual manner. His own brain shot off at queer tangents and led him

constantly into unexpected places. The narrow side lane that opened up came into view so suddenly that

Peter, with the innocence of a fouryearold, turned with military precision at the suggestion and looked over

the premises for the exact location of Linda. Eugene Snow had seen for himself the thing that Katy had told

"As man to man, Morrison, in this instance," he said in rather a hoarse, breathless voice, "don't you think it

would be a good idea for you and me to assert our manhood, to manage our own affairs, to select our own

wives if need be? If we really set ourselves to the job don't you believe we can work out our lives more to our

liking than anyone else can plan for us? You get the idea, don't you, Morrison?"

Peter was facing the kitchen sink but he did not see it. His brain was whirling. He did see Snow's point of

view. He did realize his position. But what Mr. Snow knew of his affairs he could only guess. The one thing

Mr. Snow could not know was that Linda frankly admitted her prepossession for her school chum, Donald

Whiting, but in any event if Peter could not have Linda he would much prefer occupying his dream house

"I get you," he said tersely. "It is not quite up to the mark of the manhood we like to think we possess to let

our lives be engineered by a high school kid. Suppose we do just quietly and masterfully assert ourselves

Then they went back to Lilac Valley and had their dinner together, and Linda and Peter escorted Eugene

Snow to his train and started him on his return trip to San Francisco feeling very much better. Peter would not

allow Linda to drive him home at night, so he left her after the Bear Cat had been safely placed in the garage.

As she stood on the walk beside him, strongly outlined in the moonlight, Peter studied Linda whimsically. He

said it half laughingly, but there was something to think about in what he said:

"I'm just picturing, Linda, what a nice old lady you will be by the time that high school kid of yours spends

four years in college, one on the continent, and the Lord knows how many at mastering a profession."

"Why, what are you talking about, Peter? Are you moonstruck?" she inquired solicitously. "Donald's only a

friend, you know. I love him because he is the nicest companion; but there is nothing for you to be silly

Then Peter began to realize the truth. There wasn't anything for him to be concerned about. She had not the

Eugene Snow returned to San Francisco enthusiastic about Linda, while he would scarcely have known how

to express his appreciation of Katherine O'Donovan. He had been served a delicious dinner, deftly and

quietly, such food as men particularly like; but there had been no subservience. If Katherine O'Donovan had

been waiting on her own table, serving her own friends she could not have managed with more pride. It was

very evident that she loved service, that she loved the girl to whom she gave constant attention. He

understood exactly what there was in her heart and why she felt as she did when he saw Linda and Peter

together and heard their manner of speaking to each other, and made mental note of the many points of

interest which seemed to exist between them. He returned to San Francisco with a good deal of a

"Seetheconqueringherocomes" mental attitude. He went directly to his office, pausing on the way for a

box of candy and a bunch of Parma violets. His first act on reaching the office was to send for Miss Thorne.

Marian came almost immediately, a worried look in her eyes. She sat in the big, cushioned chair that was

offered her, and smiled faintly when the box was laid on her lap, topped with the violets. She looked at

Eugene Snow with an "Iwishyouwouldn't" expression on her face; but he smiled at her reassuringly.

"Nothing," he said. "Picked them up on the way from the station. I made a hasty trip to that precious Lilac

Valley of yours, and I must say it pales your representation. It is a wonderfully lovely spot."

Marian settled back in the chair. She picked up the violets and ran an experienced finger around the stems

until she found the pin with which she fastened them at her waist. Then as they occupied themselves making

selections from the candy box he looked smilingly at Marian. Her eyes noted the change in him. He was

neither disappointed nor sad. Something had happened in Lilac Valley that had changed his perspective.

"Glad you liked my valley," she said. "We are told that blue is a wonderful aura to surround a person, and it's

equally wonderful when it surrounds a whole valley. With the blue sky and the blue walls and a few

"Yes," said Mr. Snow, "I can see that it is. I ran down on a business matter. I have been deeply puzzled and

much perturbed over this prize contest. We have run these affairs once a year, sometimes oftener, for a long

time, so I couldn't understand the peculiar thing about the similarity of the winning plans and your work this

year. I have been holding up the prize money, because I did not feel that you were saying exactly what was in

your heart, and I couldn't be altogether satisfied that everything was right. I went to Lilac Valley because I

had a letter from your friend, Miss Linda Strong. There was an enclosure in it."

He drew from his pocket the folded sheet and handed it to Marian. Her eyes were surprised, incredulous, as

she opened the missing sheet from her plans, saw the extraneous lines drawn upon it and the minute figuring

"Linda found it at last!" she cried. "Where in this world did she get it, and whose work is this on it?"

"She got it," said Eugene Snow, "when she undertook to clean Peter Morrison's workroom on an evening

when she and her cook were having supper with him. She turned a coat belonging to his architect that hung

with some of his clothing in Peter Morrison's garage. She was shaking the nest of a field mouse from one of

the side pockets. Naturally this emptied all the pockets, and in gathering up their contents she came across

that plan, which she recognized. She thought it was right to take it and very wisely felt that it was man's

business, so she sent it to me with her explanations. I went to Lilac Valley because I wanted to judge for

myself exactly what kind of young person she was. I wanted to see her environment. I wanted to see the

house that she felt sure was being built from these plans. I wanted to satisfy myself of the stability of what I

"It's an ugly business," he said, "so ugly that there is no question whatever but that it can be settled very

quietly and without any annoyance to you. I shall have to take the matter up with the board, but I have the

details so worked out that I shall have no difficulty in arranging matters as I think best. There is no question

whatever, Marian, but Anderson found that sketch on the west side of the Strong residence. When you left

your plans lying on a table before a window in the Strong guestroom the night before you came to San

Francisco you did not know that the santana which raged through the valley a day or two previously had

stripped a screen from the window before which you left them. In opening your door to establish a draft

before you went to bed you started one that carried your top drawing through the window. Waiting for Miss

Strong the next morning, in making a circuit of the grounds Anderson found it and appropriated it to most

excellent advantage. Miss Linda tells me that your study of architecture was discussed at the dinner table that

night. He could not have helped realizing that any sheet of plans he found there must have been yours. If he

could acquit his conscience of taking them and using them, he would still have to explain why he was ready

to accept the first prize and the conditions imposed when he already had a house fairly well under

construction from the plans he submitted in the contest. The rule is unbreakable that the plans must be

Marian was leaning forward, her eyes wide with interest, her breast agitated. She nodded in acquiescence.

Eugene Snow reached across and helped himself to another piece of candy from the box on her knee. He

looked at her speculatively and spoke quietly as if the matter were of no great importance.

"Would it be agreeable, Marian, if the prize committee should annOunce that there were reasons as to why

they were not satisfied, that they have decided to return all plans and call off the present contest, opening

another in a few months in which interested parties may again submit their drawings? I will undertake swiftly

and comprehensively to eliminate Henry Anderson from California. I would be willing to venture quite a sum

that when I finish with the youngster he will see the beauty of going straight hereafter and the desirability of a

change of atmosphere. He's a youngster. I hate to make the matter public, not only on account of involving

you and your friends in such disagreeable business, but I am sorry for him. I would like to deal with him like

the proverbial 'Dutch uncle,' then I would like to send him away to make a new start with the assurance that I

am keeping close watch on him. Would you be satisfied if I handled the matter quietly and in my own way?

"Of course," she said, "it would be wonderful if you could do that. But what about Peter Morrison? How

"Nothing," said Mr. Snow. "That most unusual young friend of yours made me see the light very clearly

concerning Peter Morrison. There is no necessity for him ever to know that the 'dream house,' as Miss Linda

calls it, that he is building for his dream woman has any disagreeable history attached to it. He so loves the

spot that he is living on it to watch that house in minutest detail. Miss Linda was fairly eloquent in the plea

appealed to me in the same way. There must be some scientific explanation concerning her that I don't just

get, but I can see that she is most unusual When I watched them together and heard them talk of their plans

for the house and the grounds and discussing illustrations that she is making for articles that he is writing, I

saw how deep and wholesome was the friendship existing between them. I even heard that wonderful serving

woman, whom they so familiarly speak of as 'Katy,' chiding Peter Morrison for allowing Linda to take her

typewriter to him and do her own work with a pen. And because Miss Linda seems so greathearted and

loving with her friends, I was rather glad to hear his explanation that they were merely changing machines for

"Do you mean," asked Marian, "that you think there is anything more than casual friendship between Linda

"Not on her part," answered Eugene Snow. "Anybody can see that she is a child deeply engrossed in all sorts

of affairs uncommon for a girl of her age and position. Her nice perceptions, her wonderful loyalty to her

friends, her loving thought for them, are manifest in everything she says or does. If she ever makes any

mistakes they will be from the head, not from the heart. But for the other end of the equation I could speak

authoritatively. Katy pointed out to me the fact that if I would watch Peter Morrison in Miss Linda's presence,

I should see that he adored her. I did watch, and I did see that very thing. When I taxed him about building a

dream house for a dream woman, his eyes crossed a plateau, leaped a brook, and started up the side of a

Marian sat so still that it seemed as if she were not even breathing. In view of what Katy had said, and his few

words with Peter Morrison, Eugene Snow had felt justified in giving Marian a hint as to what was going on in

Lilac Valley. Exactly what he had done he had no means of knowing. If he had known and had talked

intentionally he could not have made clearer to Marian the thing which for months had puzzled her. She was

aware that Eugene Snow was talking, that he was describing the dinner he had been served, the wonderful

wildflower garden that he had seen, how skillfully Linda drove the Bear Cat. She heard these things and

dimly comprehended them but underneath, her brain was seizing upon one fact after another. They had

exchanged typewriters. The poor, foolish little kid had known how her health was wracked, how she was

suffering, how her pride would not let her stoop to Eileen's subterfuges and wage war with her implements

for a man she did not want if her manner of living her everyday life did not appeal to him. Linda had known

how lonely and heart hungry and disappointed she had gone away, and loyally she had tried to create an

interest in life for her; and she had succeeded entirely too well. And then in a panic she must have gone to

Peter Morrison and explained the situation; and Peter must have agreed to take over the correspondence. One

by one things that had puzzled her about the letters and about the whole affair began to grow clear. She even

saw how Linda, having friendly association with no man save Peter, would naturally use him for a model.

The trouble was that, with her gift of penetration and insight and her facility with her pen, she had overdone

the matter. She had not imitated Peter; she had BEEN Peter. Marian arose suddenly.

She went home, locked the door, and one after another she read the letters that had piqued, amused,

comforted, and finally intrigued her. They were brilliant letters, charming, appealing letters, and yet, with

knowledge concerning them, Marian wondered how she could have failed to appreciate in the beginning that

"It goes to prove," she said at last, "how hungry the human heart is for love and sympathy. And that poor kid,

what she must have suffered when she went to Peter for help! And if, as Mr. Snow thinks, he cares for her,

how he must have suffered before he agreed to help her, as no doubt he did. What I have to do is to find some

way out of the situation that will relieve Linda's anxiety and at least partially save my face. I shall have to

take a few days to work it out. Luckily I haven't answered my last letter. When I find out what I really want

to say then I will be very careful how I say it. I don't just exactly relish having my letters turned over to Peter

Morrison, but possibly I can think of some wayI must think of some wayto make them feel that I have

While she thought, both Linda and Peter were doing much thinking on the same subject. Linda's heart was

full of gratitude to Peter for helping her out of her very disagreeable situation. Peter had not yet opened the

packet of letters lying on his table He had a sickening distaste for the whole transaction. He had thought that

he would wait until he received the first letter he was to answer. If it gave him sufficient foundation in itself

for the answer, he would not be forced to search further. He had smoked many pipes on this decision. After

the visit of Mr. Snow, Peter had seen a great light and had decided, from the mood and the attitude of that

gentleman after his interview with Katy, that he very likely would be equal to any complication that might

arise when he reached San Francisco. Mulling over the situation one day Peter said reflectively to the spring

which was very busy talking to him: "I am morally certain that this matter has resolved itself into a situation

that closely resembles the bootblack's apple: 'they ain't goin' to be any core.' I am reasonably certain that I

never shall have a letter to answer. In a few days probably I shall be able to turn back that packet to Linda

To make up for the perturbation which had resulted in failure in class and two weeks of work that represented

her worst appearances in highschool history, Linda, her mind freed from the worry over Marian's plans, and

her heart calmer over the fiasco in trying to comfort her, devoted herself absorbingly to her lessons and to the

next magazine article that she must finish. She had decided that it was time to write on the subject of Indian

confections. Her first spare minute she and Katy must busy themselves working out the most delicious cactus

candy possible. Then they could try the mesquite candy. No doubt she could evolve a delicious gum from the

mesquite and the incense plant. She knew she could from the willow milkweed; and under the head of

"sweets" an appetizing jelly from manzanita. There were delightful drinks too, from the manzanita and the

chia. And better than either, the lemonade berry would serve this purpose. She had not experimented to an

authoritative extent with the desert pickles. And among drinks she might use the tea made from blueeyed

grass, brewed by the Indians for feverish conditions; and there was a whole world of interest to open up in

differing seeds and berries, parched or boiled for food. And there were the seeds that were ground for mush,

like the thistle sage, and the mock orange which was food and soap also, and the wild sunflowers that were

parched for meal, and above all, the acorns. She could see that her problem was not going to be one of

difficulty in securing sufficient material for her book; it would be how to find time to gather all these things,

and put them through the various processes and combinations necessary to make edible dishes from I them. It

would mean a long summer of interesting and absorbing I work for her and for Katy. Much of it could not be

done until the I summer was far advanced and the seeds and the berries were I ripe. She could rely on Donald

to help her search for the material. l With only herself and Katy in the family they could give much of their

"Where Katy will rebel," said Linda to herself, "is when it comes to gathering sufficient seeds and parching

them to make these meal and mush dishes. She will call it 'fiddlin' business.' She shall be propitiated with a

new dress and a beautiful bonnet, and she shall go with me frequently to the fields. The old dear loves to ride.

First thing I do I'll call at the bank again and have our affairs properly straightened and settled there in the

light of the letter Daddy left me. Then I shall have money to get all the furniture and the rugs and things we

truly need. I'll repaint the kitchen and get Katy some new cooking utensils to gladden her soul. And Saturday

All these plans were feasible. What Linda had to do was to accomplish them, and this she proceeded to do in

a swift and businesslike manner. She soon reached the place where the whole house with the exception of

Eileen's suite had been gone over, freshened and refurnished to her liking. The guestroom furniture had been

moved to her rejuvenated room. On the strength of her I returns from the book she had disposed of her

furniture and was finding much girlish delight in occupying a beautiful room, daintily decorated, comfortably

furnished with pieces of her own selection. As she and Katy stood looking over their work when everything

"It's jist right and proper, lambie; it's jist the way it ought to be; and now say the word and let me clean out

Eileen's suate and get it ready for Miss Marian, so if she would drop down unexpected she would find we was

"Katy, my dear," said Linda with a dry laugh, "you'll think I am foolish, but I have the queerest feeling

concerning those things. I can't feel that Eileen has done with them; I can't feel that she will never want them

again; I can't feel that they should go to some secondhand basement. Pack all of her clothing that you can

manage in her trunk and put it in the garret, and what the trunk won't hold pack in a tight box and put that in

the garret also. She hasn't written me a line; she has sent me no address; I don't know what to do; but, as I

have said before, I am going to save the things at least a year and see whether some day Eileen won't think of

something she wants to do with them. Clean the rooms and I will order Marian's things sent."

According to these arrangements it was only a few days until Linda wrote Marian that her room was ready for

her and that any time she desired to come and take possession she could test the lovingness of the welcome

that awaited her by becoming intimately acquainted with it. Marian answered the letter immediately. She said

that she was planning to come very soon to test that welcome. She longed for the quiet of the valley, for its

cool, clean, wild air. She was very tired; she needed rest. She thought she would love the new home they

The other day Dana and I went into one of the big cafes in the city to treat ourselves to a taste of the

entertainment with which the people of wealth regale themselves. We had wandered in laughingly jesting

about what we should order, and ran into Eileen in the company of her aunt and uncle and a very flashy and

loudly dressed young man, evidently a new suitor of Eileen's. I don't think Eileen wanted to introduce us, and

yet she acted like a person ravenous for news of her home and friends. She did introduce us, and immediately

her ponderous uncle took possession of us. It seems that the man is a brother of Eileen's mother. Linda, he is

big and gross, he is everything that a man of nice perceptions would not be, but he does love Eileen. He is

trying conscientiously to please her. His wife is the kind of person who would marry that kind of man and

think everything he said and did was right. And the suitor, my dear, was the kind of man who could endure

that kind of people. Eileen was almost, if not quite, the loveliest thing I ever have seen. She was plain; she

was simple; but it was the costly simplicity of extravagance. Ye gods! but she had pearls of the size she had

always wanted. She tried with all her might to be herself, but she knows me well enough to know what I

would think and what I would write to you concerning the conditions under which I met her. We were simply

forced to lunch with them. We could only nibble at the too rich, too highly seasoned food set before us. And I

noticed that Eileen nibbled also. She is not going to grow fat and waddle and redden her nose, but, my dear,

back deep in her eyes and in the curve of her lips and in the tone of her voice there were such disappointment

and discontent as I never have seen in any woman. She could not suppress them; she could not conceal them.

There was nothing on earth she could do but sit quietly and endure. They delivered us at our respective

offices, leaving both of us dates on which to visit them, but neither of us intends to call on them. Eileen's face

was a tragedy when her uncle insisted on making the arrangements. I can at least spare her that.

And now, my dear, life is growing so full and my time is so taken with my work at the office and with my

widening friendships with Dana and her friends and with Mr. Snow, that I really feel I have not time to go

farther with our anonymous correspondence. It is all I can do to find time to write you letters such as the one I

am writing I have done my best to play up to what you expected of me and I think I have succeeded in

fooling you quite as much as you have felt that you were fooling me. But, Linda dear, I want you always to

know that I appreciate the spirit in which you began this thing. I know why you did it and I shall always love

you a trifle more for your thought of me and your effort to tide over the very dark days you knew I would be

facing in San Francisco. I think, dear friend of mine, that I have had my share of dark days. I think there is

very beautiful sunlight ahead for me. And by and by I hope to come into happiness that maybe is even more

than my share. I am coming to see you soon and then I will tell you all about it.

There was more of the letter, but at that point Linda made one headlong rush for the Bear Cat. She took the

curve on two wheels and almost ran into the mountain face behind the garage before she could slow down.

Then she set the Cat screaming wildly for Peter. As he came up to the car she leaned toward him, shaking

Peter rushed into the garage and brought out the packet. Linda caught it in both hands and dropped it in her

"Well, thank God," she said devoutly. "And, Peter, the joke's on me. Marian knew I was writing those letters

all the time and she just pretended that she cared for them to make the game interesting for me. And when she

had so many friends and so much to do, she hadn't time for them any longer; then she pretended that she was

Linda's face was a small panorama of conflicting emotions as she appealed to Peter.

"Peter," she said in a quivering voice, "you can testify that she stopped me properly, can't you, Peter?"

Peter tried to smile. He was older than Linda, and he was thinking swiftly, intently.

"Yes, kid," he said with utmost corroboration, "yes, kid, she stopped you, but I can't see that it was necessary

literally to scare the life out of you till she had you at the point where you were thinking of taking off from a

Linda relaxed suddenly. She sank back into the deeply padded seat of the Bear Cat. A look of fright and

"Yes, Peter, I did mean it," she said with finality. "I couldn't have lived if I had hurt Marian irreparably. She

has been hurt so much already. And, Peter, it was awfully nice of you to wait about reading these letters.

Even if she only did it for a joke, I think Marian would rather that you had not read them. Now I'll go back

home and begin to work in earnest on the head piece of 'How to Grow Good Citizens.' And I quite agree with

you, Peter, that the oath of allegiance, citizenship, and the title to a piece of real estate are the prime

requisites. People have no business comma to our country to earn money that they intend to carry away to

invest in the development and the strengthening of some other country that may some day be our worst

enemy. I have not found out yet how to say it in a fourbytwelveinch strip, but by the time I have read the

article aloud to my skylight along about ten tonight I'll get an inspiration; I am sure I shall."

"Of course you will," said Peter; "but don't worry about it, dear; don't lose sleep. Take things slower. Give

time for a little more flesh to grow on your bones. And don't forget that while you're helping Donald to keep

"Beautifully," said Peter. "One of these days you're going to come rushing around the boulders and down the

side of the building to find all this debris cleared away and the place for a lawn leveled. I am fighting down

every possible avenue of expertise on the building in the effort to save money to make the brook run and the

Linda looked at Peter while a queer, reflective light gathered in her eyes. At last she said soberly: "Well, I

don't know, Peter, that you should make them so very personal to me as all that."

Linda released the clutch and started the car. She backed in front of the garage and turned. She was still

"Thank you a thousand times for not reading these letters, Peter," she said. "I can't express how awfully fine I

think it is of you. And if it's all right with you, perhaps there's not any real reason why you should not run that

brook and drive that road the way I think they should go. Somebody is going to design them. Why shouldn't

"It pleases me very greatly," said Peter"more than anything else I can think of in all the world at this

And then he did a thing that he had done once or twice before. He bent back Linda's fingers and left another

kiss in the palm of her hand, and then he closed her fingers very tightly over it.

The middle of the week Linda had told Katy that she intended stocking up the Bear Cat for three and that she

would take her along on the next Saturday's trip to her canyon kitchen. It was a day upon which she had

planned to gather greens, vegetables, and roots, and prepare a dinner wholly from the wild. She was fairly

sure exactly where in nature she would find the materials she wanted, but she knew that the search would be

long and tiring. It would be jolly to have Katy to help her prepare the lunch. It would please Katy immensely

to be taken; and the original things she said in her quaint Irish brogue greatly amused Donald. The

arrangement had been understood among them for some time, so they all started on their journey filled with

happy expectations. They closed the house and the garage carefully. Linda looked over the equipment of the

Bear Cat minutely making sure that her field axe, saw, knives, and her field glasses were in place. Because

more food than usual was to be prepared in the kitchen they took along a nest of cooking vessels and a

broiler. They found Donald waiting before either of them were ready, and in great glee, with much laughing

and many jests they rolled down the valley in the early morning. They drove to the kitchen, spread their

blankets, set up their table, and arranged the small circular opening for their day's occupancy. While Katy and

Linda were busy with these affairs Donald took the axe and collected a big heap of wood. Then they left Katy

to burn the wood and have a deep bed of coals ready while they started out to collect from the canyon walls,

the foot of the mountains, and the nearby desert the materials they would use for their dinner.

Just where the desert began to climb the mountain Linda had for a long time watched a big bed of amole.

Donald used the shovel, she the hatchet, and soon they had brought to the surface such a quantity that Donald

"But I have two uses for them today," explained Linda. "They must serve for potatoes and they have to

"Now I'll tell you what I think we had better do," said Linda. "We will skirmish around this side of the

mountain and find a very nice tender yucca shoot; and then we'll take these back to Katy and let her bury

them in the ashes and keep up the fire while we forage for the remainder of our wild Indian feast."

Presently they found a yucca head that Linda said was exactly right, a delicate pink, thicker than her wrist and

two feet in length. With this and the amole they ran back to Katy. She knew how to prepare the amole for

roasting. Linda gave her a few words of instruction concerning the yucca. Then from the interior of the Bear

Cat she drew a tightly rolled section of wire window screening. Just where a deep, wide pool narrowed at a

rocky defile they sank the screening, jammed it well to the bottom, fastened it tight at the sides, and against

the current side of it they threw leaves, grass, chunks of moss, any debris they could gather that would make a

temporary dam. Then, standing on one side with her field knife, Linda began to slice the remainder of the

amole very thin and to throw it over the surface of the pool. On the other, Donald pounded the big, juicy

bulbs to pulp and scattered it broadcast over the water. Linda instructed Katy to sit on the bank with a

longhandled landing net and whenever a trout arose, to snatch it out as speedily as possible, being careful

Then the two youngsters, exhilarated with youth, with living, with the joy of friendship, with the lure of the

valley, with the heady intoxication of the salt breeze and the gold of the sunshine, climbed into the Bear Cat

and went rolling through the canyon and out to the valley on the far side. Here they gathered the tenderest

heart shoots of the lupin until Linda said they had enough. Then to a particular spot that she knew on the

desert they hurried for the enlarged stems of the desert trumpet which was to serve that day for an appetizer

in the stead of pickles. Here, too, they filled a bucket from the heart of a big Bisnaga cactus as a basis for

their drink. Among Katherine O'Donovan's cooking utensils there was a box of delicious cactus candy made

from the preserved and sundried heart meat of this same fruit which was to serve as their confection. On the

way back they stopped at the bridge and gathered cress for their salad. When they returned to Katy she had

five fine trout lying in the shade, and with more experienced eyes and a more skillful hand Linda in a few

minutes doubled this number. Then they tore out the dam, rinsed the screen and spread it over a rock to dry.

While Donald scaled the fish Linda put the greens to cook, prepared the salad and set the table. Once, as he

worked under her supervision, Linda said to Donald: "Now about bread, kidthere's not going to be any

bread, because the Indians did not have it when they lived the way we are living today. When you reach the

place where your left hand feels empty without a piece of bread in it, just butter up another amole and try it. It

"If you would let me skin these fish," said Donald, "I could do it much faster and make a better job of it."

"But you shouldn't skin them; you want the skin to hold the meat together when it begins to cook tender; and

you should be able to peel it off and discard it if it burns or gets smoky in the cooking. It's a great concession

"Oh my tummy!" said Donald. "I always thought there was some dark secret about the Indians."

Linda sat on a rock opposite him and clasped her hands around her knees. She looked at him meditatively.

"Did you?" she asked. "Suppose you revise that opinion. Our North American Indians in their original state

were as fine as any peoples that ever have been discovered the round of the globe. My grandfather came into

intimate contact with them in the early days, and he said that their religion, embracing the idea of a great

spirit to whom they were responsible for their deeds here, and a happy hunting ground to which they went as

a reward for decent living, was as fine as any religion that ever has been practiced by people of any nation.

Immorality was unknown among them. Family ties were formed and they were binding They loved their

children and reared them carefully. They were hardy and healthful. Until the introduction of whiskey and

what we are pleased to term civilized methods of living, very few of them died save from war or old age.

They were free; they were happy. The moping, lazy, diseased creature that you find sleeping in the sun

around the reservations is a product of our civilization. Nice commentary on civilization, isn't it?"

"For heaven's sake, Linda," said Donald, "don't start any big brainstorming trains of thought today! Grant me

repose. I have overworked my brain for a few months past until I know only one thing for certain."

"All right then, me lad, this is the time for the big secret," said Linda. "I just happened to be in the assembly

room on some business of my own last Thursday afternoon when my sessions were over, and I overheard

your professor in trigonometry tell a marl I did not know, who seemed to be a friend visiting him, that the son

of Judge Whiting was doing the finest work that ever had been done in any of the Los Angeles high schools,

and that undoubtedly you were going to graduate with higher honors than any other boy ever had from that

Donald sat thinking this over. He absently lifted an elbow and wiped the tiny scales from his face with his

"Young woman," he said solemnly, "them things what you're saying, are they 'cross your heart, honest to

goodness, so help you,' truth, or are they the fruit of a perfervid imagination?"

"De but', kid," she said, "de gospel but'. You have the Jap going properly. He can't stop you now. You have

fought your good fight, and you have practically won it. All you have to do is to carry on till the middle of

"The Judge does know," said Linda heartily. "It wasn't fifteen minutes after I heard that till I had him on the

telephone repeating it as fast as I could repeat. Come to think of it, haven't you noticed a particularly cocky

set of his head and the corksome lightness about his heels during the past few days?"

"By Jove, he has been happy about something!" said Donald. "And I noticed that Louise and the Mater were

"Sure, brother, sure," said Linda. "Hurry up and scrape those fish and let's scamper down the canyon merely

Donald was sitting on a boulder. On another in front of him he was operating on the trout. His hands were

soiled; his hair was tousled; he was fairly well decorated with fine scales. He looked at Linda appealingly.

so many things to tell you. And when your first vacation comes we'll make it a hummer."

"I know Dad won't let me come home for my holidays except for the midsummer ones," said Donald soberly.

"It would take most of the time there would be of the short holidays to travel back and forth."

"You will have to go very carefully about getting a start," said Linda, "and you should be careful to find the

right kind of friends at the very start. Christmas and Thanksgiving boxes can always be sent on time to reach

you. It won't be so long for you as for us; and by the time you have Oka Sayye beaten to ravelings you will

have such a 'perfect habit' that you will start right in with the beating idea. That should keep you fairly busy,

"Yes, I know," said Donald. "Are you going to start me to college with the idea that I have to keep up this

beating habit? If I were to be one of fifty or a hundred, wouldn't that be good enough?"

"Why, sure," said Linda, "if you will be satisfied with having me like fifty or a hundred as well as I do you."

"Oh, damn!" said Donald angrily. "Do I have to keep up this topcrust business all my days?"

"Not unless you want to, Donald," she said quietly; "not unless you think you would rather."

Donald scraped a fish vigorously. Linda sat watching him. Presently the tense lines around his eyes vanished.

A faint red crept up his neck and settled on his left cheek bone. A confused grin slowly widened his naturally

"Then it's me for you," answered Linda in equally as matteroffact tones; and rising, she gathered up the

fish and carried them to Katy while Donald knelt beside the chilly stream and scoured his face and hands,

after which Linda whipped away the scales with an improvised brush of willow twigs.

It was such a wonderful day; it was such an unusual and delicious feast. Plump brook trout, fresh from icy

water, delicately broiled over searing wood coals, are the finest of food. Through the meal to the point where

Donald lay on his back at the far curve of the canyon wall, nibbling a piece of cactus candy, everything had

been perfect. Nine months would be a long time to be gone, but Linda would wait for him, and she would

He raised his head on his elbow and called across to her: "Say, Linda, how often will you write to me?"

Linda answered promptly: "Every Saturday night. Saturday is our day. I'll tell you what has happened all the

week. I'll tell you specially what a darned unprofitable day Saturday is when you're three thousand miles

Bending over the canyon fireplace, her face red with heat and exertion, Katherine O'Donovan caught up her

"Easy, Katy, easy," cautioned Linda. "We may want to bury those coals and resurrect them to warm up what

"We'll do no such thing," said Katy promptly. "What remains goes to feed the fish. Next time it's hungry ye

are, we're goin' to hit it straight to Lilac Valley and fill ourselves with God's own bread and beefsteak and

paraties. Don't ye think we're goin' to be atin' these haythen messes twice in one day."

To herself she was saying: "The sooner I get you home to Pater Morrison, missy, the better I'll be satisfied."

Once she stood erect, her hands at her belt, her elbows widespread, and with narrowed eyes watched the

youngsters. Her lips were closed so tightly they wrinkled curiously as she turned back to the fireplace.

"Nayther one of them fool kids has come to yet," she said to herself, "and a mighty good thing it is that they

Linda was looking speculatively at Donald as he lay stretched on the Indian blanket at the base of the cliff.

And then, because she was for ever busy with Nature, her eyes strayed above him up the side of the cliff,

noting the vegetation, the scarred rocks, the sheer beauty of the canyon wall until they reached the top. Then,

for no reason at all, she sat looking steadily at a huge boulder overhanging the edge of the cliff, and she was

wondering how many ages it had hung there and how many more it would hang, poised almost in air, when a

tiny pebble at its base loosened and came rattling and bounding down the canyon face. Every nerve in Linda

tensed. She opened her mouth, but not a sound came. For a breathless second she was paralyzed. Then she

For months Donald Whiting had obeyed Linda implicitly and instantly. He had moved with almost invisible

speed at her warning many times before. Sometimes it had been a venomous snake, sometimes a yucca

bayonet, sometimes poison vines, again unsafe footingin each case instant obedience had been the rule. He

did hot "question why" at her warning; he instantly did as he was told. He, too, had noticed the falling pebble.

With all the agility of which he was capable he rolled under the narrow projecting ledge above him.

Katherine O'Donovan was a good soldier also. She whirled and ran to the roadway. She had barely reached it

when, with a grinding crash, down came the huge boulder, carrying bushes, smaller rocks, sand, and debris

with it. On account of its weight it fell straight, struck heavily, and buried itself in the earth exactly on the

spot upon which Donald had been lying. Linda raised terrified eyes to the top of the wall. For one instant a

dark object peered over it and then drew back. Without thought for herself Linda rushed to the boulder, and

"Can you get out?" she cried, beginning to tear with her hands at the stone and the bushes where she thought

"I'm fast; but I'm all right," he panted. "Why the devil did that thing hang there for ages, and then come down

"Yes, why did it?" gasped Linda. "Donald, I must leave you a minute. I've got to know if I saw a head peer

Linda sprang to her feet and rushed to the car. She caught out the field classes and threw the strap over her

head as she raced to the far side of the fireplace where the walls were not so sheer. Katherine O'Donovan

promptly seized the axe, caught its carrying strap lying beside it, thrust the handle through, swung it over her

own head, dropped it between her shoulders, and ripping off her dress skirt she started up the cliff after

Linda. Linda was climbing so swiftly and so absorbedly that she reached the top before she heard a sound

behind her. Then she turned with a white face, and her mouth dropped open as she saw Katy three fourths of

the way up the cliff. For one second she was again stiff with terror, then, feeling she could do nothing, she

stepped back out of sight and waited a second until Katy's red head and redder face appeared over the edge.

Realizing that her authority was of no avail, that Katy would follow her no matter where she went or what she

did, and with no time to argue, Linda simply called to her encouragingly: "Follow where I go; take your time;

straight upward, traveling as swiftly and as noiselessly as possible. Over big boulders, on precarious footing,

clinging to bushes, they made their way until they reached a place that seemed to be sheer above them;

certainly it was for hundreds of feet below On a point of rock screened by overhanging bushes Linda paused

"We are about stalled," she panted. "Find a good footing and stay where you are. I'm going to climb out on

Advancing a few yards, Linda braced herself, drew around her glasses, and began searching the side of the

mountain opposite her and below as far as she could range with the glasses. At last she gave up.

"Must have gone the other way," she said to Katy. "I'll crawl back to you. We'll go after help and get Donald

out. There will be time enough to examine the cliff afterward; but I am just as sure now as I will be when it is

examined that that stone was purposely loosened to a degree where a slight push would drop it. As Donald

says, there's no reason why it should hang there for centuries and fall on him today. Shut your eyes, old dear,

and back up. We must go to Donald. I rather think it's on one of his feet from what he said. Let me take one

At that minute from high on the mountain above them a shower of sand and pebbles came rattling down.

Just how Linda recrossed the bushes and reached Katy she did not know. She motioned for her to make her

way back as they had come. Katy planted her feet squarely upon the rock. Her lower jaw shot out; her eyes

were aflame. She stood perfectly still with the exception of motioning Linda to crowd back under the bushes,

and again Linda realized that she had no authority; as she had done from childhood when Katy was in

earnest, Linda obeyed her. She had barely reached the overhanging bushes, crouched under them, and

straightened herself, when a small avalanche came showering down, and a minute later a pair of feet were

level with her head. Then screened by the bushes, she could have reached out and touched Oka Sayye. As his

feet found a solid resting place on the ledge on which Linda and Katy stood, and while he was still clinging to

the bushes, Katherine O'Donovan advanced upon him. He had felt that his feet were firm, let go his hold, and

turned, when he faced the infuriated Irishwoman. She had pulled the strap from around her neck, slipped the

axe from it, and with a strong thrust she planted the head of it against Oka Sayye's chest so hard that she

almost fell forward. The Jap plunged backward among the bushes, the roots of which had supported Linda

while she used the glasses. Then he fell, sliding among them, snatching wildly. Linda gripped the

Katy took another step forward. She looked over the cliff down an appalling depth of hundreds of feet.

Deliberately she raised the axe, circled it round her head and brought it down upon that particular branch to

through, and the axe rang upon the stone wall behind it. As she swayed forward Linda reached out, gripped

"Get him?" she asked tersely, as if she were speaking of a rat or a rattlesnake.

Katy sank back limply against the wall. Linda slowly turned her around, and as she faced the rock, "Squeeze

tight against it shut your eyes, and keep a stiff upper lip," she cautioned. "I'm going to work around You; I

She squeezed past Katy, secured the axe and hung it round her own neck. She cautioned Katy to keep her

eyes shut and follow where she led her, then they started on their way back. Linda did not attempt to descend

the sheer wall by which they had climbed, but making a detour she went lower, and in a very short time they

were back in the kitchen. Linda rushed to the boulder and knelt again, but she could get no response to her

questions. Evidently Donald's foot was caught and he was unconscious from the pain. Squeezing as close as

she could, she thrust her arm under the ledge until she could feel his head. Then she went to the other side,

and there she could see that his right foot was pinned under the rock. She looked at Katy reassuringly, then

"He's alive," she said. "Can't kill a healthy youngster to have a crushed foot. You stand guard until I take the

At full speed Linda put the Cat through the stream and out of the canyon until she reached cultivated land,

where she found a man who would gather other men and start to the rescue. She ran on until she found a

house with a telephone. There she called Judge Whiting, telling him to bring an ambulance and a surgeon,

giving him explicit directions as to where to come, and assuring him that Donald could not possibly be

seriously hurt. She found time to urge, also, that before starting he set in motion any precautions he had taken

for Donald's protection. She told him where she thought what remained of Oka Sayye could be found. And

then, as naturally and as methodically as she had done all the rest, she called Peter Morrison and told him that

And because Peter had many miles less distance to travel than the others she had summoned, he arrived first.

He found Linda and Katy had burrowed under the stone until they had made an opening into which the

broken foot might sink so that the pain of the pressure would be relieved. Before the rock, with picks and

shovels, half a dozen sympathetic farmers from ranches and cultivated land at the mouth of the canyon were

digging furiously to make an opening undermining the boulder so that it could be easily tipped forward.

Donald was conscious and they had been passing water to him and encouraging him with the report that his

father and a good surgeon would be there very soon. Katherine O'Donovan had crouched at one side of the

boulder, supporting the hurt foot. She was breathing heavily and her usually red face was a ghastly green.

Linda had helped her to resume the skirt of her dress. At the other side of the rock the girl was reaching to

where she could touch Donald's head or reassuringly grip the hand that he could extend to her. Peter seized

Linda's axe and began hewing at the earth and rock in order to help in the speedy removal of the huge

boulder. Soon Judge Whiting, accompanied by Doctor Fleming, the city's greatest surgeon, came caring into

the canyon and stopped on the roadway when he saw the party. The Judge sprang from the car, leaped the

stream, and started toward them. In an effort to free his son before his arrival, all the men braced themselves

against the face of the cliff and pushed with their combined strength. The boulder dropped forward into the

trench they had dug for it enough to allow Peter to crowd his body between it and the cliff and lift Donald's

her way in, and carefully lifting Donald's feet, she managed to work the lithe slenderness of her body through

the opening, so that they carried Donald out and laid him down in the open. He was considerably dazed and

himself a game youngster of the right mettle. He raised himself to a sitting posture, managing a rather

stifflipped smile for his father and Linda. The surgeon instantly began cutting to reach the hurt foot, while

Peter Morrison supported the boy's head and shoulders on one side, his father on the other.

An exclamation of dismay broke from the surgeon's lips. He looked at Judge Whiting and nodded slightly.

The men immediately picked up Donald and carried him to the ambulance. Katherine O'Donovan sat down

suddenly and buried her face in the skirt of her dress. Linda laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Don't, Katy," she said. "Keep up your nerve; you're all right, old dear. Donald's fine. That doesn't mean

anything except that his foot is broken, so he won't be able, and it won't be necessary for him, to endure the

pain of setting it in a cast without an anesthetic; and Doctor Fleming can work much better where he has

The surgeon climbed into the ambulance and they started on an emergency run to the hospital. As the car

turned and swept down the canyon, for no reason that she could have explained, Linda began to shake until

her teeth clicked. Peter Morrison sprang back across the brook, and running to her side, he put his arm around

her and with one hand he pressed her head against his shoulder, covering her face.

"Steady, Linda," he said quietly, "steady. You know that he is all right. It will only be a question of a short

Linda made a brave effort to control herself. She leaned against Peter and held out both her hands.

"I am getting away immediately," he said. "I must reach Louise and Mother before they get word of this.

Doctor Fleming will take care of Donald all right. What happened, Linda? Can you tell me?"

Linda opened her lips and tried to speak, but she was too breathless, too full of excitement, to be coherent. To

her amazement Katherine O'Donovan scrambled to her feet, lifted her head and faced the Judge. She pointed

"I was right there, busy with me cookie' utensils," she said l Miss Linda was asittin, on that exact spot, they

jist havin 1 finished atin' some of her haythen messes; and the lad was lyin, square where the boulder struck,

on the Indian blanket, atin' a pace of cactus candy. And jist one pebble came rattlin' down, but Miss Linda

happened to be lookin', and she scramed to the b'y to be rollin' under where ye found him; so he gave a flop

or two, and it's well that he took his orders without waitin' to ask the raison for them, for if he had, at the

prisint minute he would be about as thick as a shate of writing paper. The thing dropped clear and straight and

"Miss Linda got to him and she made sure he had brathin' space and he wasn't hurt bad, and then she told him

he had got to stand it, because, sittin' where she did, she faced the cliff and she thought she had seen

someone. She took the telescope and started climbin', and I took the axe and I started climbin' after her."

Katy broke down and emitted a weird Irish howl. Linda instantly braced herself, threw her arms around Katy,

and drew her head to her shoulder. She looked at Judge Whiting and began to talk

"I can show you where she followed me, straight up the face of the canyon, almost," she said. "And she never

had tried to climb a canyon side for a yard, either, but she came up and over after me, like a cat. And up there

on a small ledge Oka Sayye came down directly above us. I couldn't be mistaken. I saw him plainly. I know

him by sight as well as I do any of you. We heard the stones coming down before him, and we knew someone

was going to be on us who was desperate enough to kill. When he touched our level and turned to follow the

"Why, ye domned little fool, ye!" she screamed. "Ye never told a lie before in all your days! Judge Whiting, I

had the axe round me neck by the climbin' strap, and I got it in me fingers when we heard the crature comin',

and against his chist I set it, and I gave him a shove that sint him over. Like a cat he was aclingin' and

climbin', and when I saw him comin' up on us with that awful face of his, I jist swung the axe like I do when

I'm rejoocin' a pace of eucalyptus to fireplace size, and whack! I took the branch supportin' him, and a dome'

Katy folded her arms, lifted her chin higher than it ever had been before, and glared defiance at the Judge.

The Judge reached over and took both Katherine O'Donovan's hands in a firm grip.

"You brave woman!" he said. "If it lay in my power, I would give you the Carnegie Medal. In any event I will

see that you have a good bungalow with plenty of shamrock on each side of your front path, and a fair

"I am no overfeeder," said Katy proudly. "I'm daily exercisin' me muscles enough to kape them young. The

rheumatism I'll not have. And nayther will I have the house nor the income. I've saved me money; I've an

"And as for the bungalow," interrupted Linda, "Katherine, as I have mentioned frequently before is my father,

"Sure," said Katy proudly. "When these two fine people before you set up their hearthstone, aswapin' it I'll

be, and carin' for their youngsters; but, Judge, I would like a bit of the shamrock. Ye might be sendin' me a

Judge Whiting looked intently at Katherine O'Donovan. And then, as if they had been on the witness stand,

he looked searchingly at Linda. But Linda was too perturbed, too accustomed to Katy's extravagant nonsense

even to notice the purport of what she had said. Then the Judge turned his attention to Peter Morrison and

realized that at least one of the parties to Katherine's proposed hearthstone had understood and heartily

"I will have to be going. The boy and his mother will need me," he said. "I will see all of you later."

Then he sprang across the brook and sent his car roaring down the canyon after the ambulance.

Once more Katy sank to the ground. Linda looked at her as she buried her face and began to wail.

"Peter," she said quietly, "hunt our belongings and pack them in the Bear Cat the best you can. Excuse us for

Gravely she sat down beside Katy, laid her head on her shoulder, and began to cry very nearly as

energetically as Katy herself. And that was the one thing which was most effective in restoring Katy's nerves.

Tears were such an unaccustomed thing with Linda that Katy controlled herself speedily so that she might be

better able to serve the girl. In a few minutes Katy had reduced her emotions to a dry sniffle. She lifted her

head, groped for her pocket, and being unable to find it for the very good reason that she was sitting upon it,

she used her gingham hem as a handkerchief. Once she had risen to the physical effort of wiping her eyes,

she regained calmness rapidly. The last time she applied the hem she looked at Peter, but addressed the

In a few minutes she was searching the kitchen, making sure that no knives, spoons, or cooking utensils were

lost. Missing her support, Linda sat erect and endeavored to follow Katy's example. Her eyes met Peter's and

when she saw that his shoulders were shaking, a dry, hysterical laugh possessed her.

"Yes, Katy," she panted, "that WILL do, and remember the tears we are shedding are over Donald's broken

foot, and because this may interfere with his work, though I don't think it will for long."

"When I cry," said Katy tersely, "I cry because I feel like it. I wasn't wapin' over the snake that'd plan a death

like that for anyone"Katy waved toward the boulder"and nayther was I wastin' me tears over the fut of a

"Well, there's times," said Katy judicially, "when me spirits tell me I would be the better for lettin' off a wee

bit of stame, and one of them times havin' arrived, I jist bowed me head to it, as is in accordance with the

makings of me. Far be it from me to be flyin' in the face of Providence and sayin' I won't, when all me

"Why, I think," said Linda, "that Katy has explained sufficiently for both of us. It was merely time for us to

"Well, that's all right," said Peter. "Now I'll tell you something. If you had gone away in that ambulance to an

anesthetic and an operation, no wildcat that ever indulged in a hunger hunt through this canyon could have

"Peter," said Linda, "there is nothing funny about this; it's no tame for jest. But do men have nerves? Would

"No, you wouldn't," contradicted Linda. "You just say that because you want to comfort us for having broken

"He would, too!" said Katy, starting to the Bear Cat with a load of utensils. "Now come on; let's go home and

be gettin' craned up and ready for what's goin' to happen to us. Will they be jailin' us, belike, Miss Linda?"

"No," he said quietly. "It is very probable that the matter never will be mentioned to you again, unless Judge

Whiting gets hold of some clue that he wishes to use as an argument against matured Japs being admitted in

the same highschool classes with our clean, decent, young Americans. They stopped that in the grades

Before they could start back to Lilac Valley a car stopped in the canyon and a couple of men introducing

themselves as having come from Judge Whiting interviewed Katy and Linda exhaustively. Then Linda

pointed out to them an easier but much longer route by which they might reach the top of the canyon to

examine the spot from which the boulder had fallen. She showed them where she and Katy had ascended, and

When it came to a question of really starting, Linda looked with appealing eyes at Peter.

"Peter," she said, "could we fix it any way so you could drive Katy and me home? For the first time since I

"Of course," said Peter. "I'll take your car to the nearest farmhouse and leave it, then I'll take you and Katy in

Late that evening Judge Whiting came to Lilac Valley with his wife and daughter to tell Linda that the top of

the cliff gave every evidence of the stone having been loosened previously, so that a slight impetus would

send it crashing down at the time when Donald lay in his accustomed place directly in the line of its fall. His

detectives had found the location of the encounter and they had gone to the bottom of the cliff, a thousand

feet below, but they had not been able to find any trace of Oka Sayye. Somewhere in waiting there had been

confederates who had removed what remained of him. On the way home Mrs. Whiting said to her husband:

"Judge, are you very sure that what the cook said to you this afternoon about Miss Strong and Mr. Morrison

"I am only sure of its truth so far as he is concerned," replied the Judge. "What he thought about Linda was

evident. I am very sorry. She is a mighty fine girl and I think Donald is very much interested in her."

"Yes, I think so, too," said Donald's mother. "Interested; but he has not even a case of first love. He is

interested for the same reason you would be or I would be, because she is intellectually so stimulating. And

you have to take into consideration the fact that in two or three years more she will be ready for marriage and

a home of her own, and Donald will still be in school with his worldly experience and his business education

not yet begun. The best thing that can happen to Donald is just to let his infatuation for her die a natural

"Well, I would like mighty well to have her in the family," he said. "She's a corking fine girl. She would

make a fine mother of fine men. I haven't a doubt but that with the power of his personality and the power of

his pen and the lure of propinquity, Peter Morrison will win her, but I hate it. It's the best chance the boy ever

"Donald hasn't any chance, Dad," she said quietly, "and he never did have. I have met Peter Morrison myself

and I would be only too glad if I thought he was devoted to me. I'll grant that Linda Strong is a fine girl, but

when she wakes up to the worth of Peter Morrison and to a realization of what other women would be glad to

be to him, she will merely reach out and lay possessive hands upon what already belongs to her."

It was a curious thing that such occurrences as the death of Oka Sayye and the injury to Donald could take

place and no one know about them. Yet the papers were silent on the subject and so were the courts. Linda

and Katy were fully protected. The confederates of Oka Sayye for reasons of their own preferred to keep very

By Monday Donald, with his foot in a plaster cast, was on a side veranda of his home with a table beside him

strewn with books and papers. An agreement had been made that his professors should call and hear his

recitations for a few days until by the aid of a crutch and a cane he could resume his place in school. Linda

went to visit him exactly as she would have gone to see Marian in like circumstances. She succeeded in

One evening, after he had been hobbling about for over a week, Linda and Peter called to spend the evening,

and a very gay and enjoyable evening it was. And yet when it was over and they had gone away together

Donald appeared worried and deeply thoughtful. When his mother came to his room to see if the foot was

unduly painful or there was anything she could do to make him more comfortable, he looked at her

Mrs. Whiting stood very still. She thought very fast. Should she postpone it or should she let the boy take all

of his hurts together? Her heart ached for him and yet she felt that she knew what life had in store for him

concerning Linda. So she sat on the edge of the bed and began to talk quietly, plainly, reasonably. She tried to

explain nature and human nature and what she thought the laws of probability were in the case. Donald lay

silent. He said nothing until she had finished all she had to say, and then he announced triumphantly: "You're

all wrong. That is what would happen if Linda were a girl like any of the other girls in her class, or like

Louise. But she has promised that she would write to me every Saturday night and she has said that she

"Donald dear," said Mrs. Whiting, "you're not 'in love' with Linda yourself, and neither is she with you. By

the time you are ready to marry and settle down in life, Linda in all probability will be married and be the

"Oh, that 'love' business," said Donald, "it makes me tired! Linda and I never did any mushing around. We

A bit of pain in Mrs. Whiting's heart eased. It was difficult to keep her lips quiet and even.

"You haven't asked her to marry you, then?" she said soberly. "Oh good Lord," cried Donald, "'marry!' How

could I marry anyone when I haven't even graduated from high school and with college and all that to come?"

"That is what I have been trying to tell you," said his mother evenly. "I don't believe you have been thinking

about marriage and I am absolutely certain that Linda has not, but she is going to be made to think about it

long before you will be in such financial position that you dare. That is the reason I am suggesting that you

think about these things seriously and question yourself as to whether you would be doing the fair thing by

Linda if you tried to tie her up in an arrangement that would ask her to wait six or eight years yet before you

"Of course you can," agreed his mother. "I made that estimate fully a year too long. But even in seven years

Linda could do an awful lot of waiting; and there are some very wonderful girls that will be coming up six or

seven years from now here at home. You know that hereafter all the girls in the world are going to be very

much more Linda's kind of girls than they have been heretofore. The girls who have lived through the war

and who have been intimate with its sorrow and its suffering and its terrible results to humanity, are not going

to be such heedless, thoughtless, not nearly such selfish, girls as the world has known in the decade just past.

And there is going to be more outdoor life, more nature study. There are going to be stronger bodies, better

food, bettercaredfor young people; and every year educational advantages are going to be greater. If you

can bring yourself to think about giving up the idea of there ever existing any extremely personal thing

between you and Linda, I am very sure I could guarantee to introduce you to a girl who would be quite her

"That's nice talk," he said, "and it may be true talk. But in the first place I wish that Peter Morrison would let

my girl alone, and in the second place I don't care if there are a thousand just as nice girls or even

betterlooking girls than Linda, though any girl would be going some if she were nicer and better looking

than Linda. But I am telling you that when my foot gets better I am going to Lilac Valley and tell him where

"Of course you will," said his mother reassuringly; "and I'll go with you and we'll see to it that he attends

Donald burst out laughing, exactly as his mother in her heart had hoped that he would.

"Yes, I've got a handpainted picture of myself starting to Lilac Valley to fight a man who is butting in with

Mrs. Whiting put her arms around her boy, kissed him tenderly, and smoothed his hair, and then turned out

the lights and slipped from the room. But in the clear moonlight as she closed the door she could see that a

boyish grin was twisting his lips, and she went down to tell the Judge that he need not worry. If his boy were

The following weeks were very happy for Linda. When the cast was removed from Donald's foot and it was

found that a year or two of care would put him even on the athletic fields and the dancing floor again, she was

She lacked words in which to express her joy that Marian was rapidly coming into happiness. She was so

very busy with her school work, with doing all she could to help Donald with his, with her "Jane Meredith"

articles, with hunting and working out material for her book, that she never had many minutes at a time for

introspection. When she did have a few she sometimes pondered deeply as to whether Marian had been

altogether sincere in the last letter she had written her in their correspondence, but she was so delighted in the

outcome that if she did at times have the same doubt in a fleeting form that had not been in the least fleeting

with Peter Morrison, she dismissed it as rapidly as possible. When things were so very good as they were at

One evening as she came from school, thinking that she would take Katy for a short run in the Bear Cat

before dinner, she noticed a red head prominent in the front yard as she neared home. When she turned in at

the front walk and crossed the lawn she would have been willing to wager quite a sum that Katy had been

"Why, old dear," said Linda, putting her arms around her, "if anything has gone wrong with you I will

certainly take to the warpath, instanter. I can't even imagine what could be troubling you." Linda lowered her

"I thought not," said Linda. "Judge Whiting promised me that what use he made of that should be man's

business and exploited wholly for the sake of California and her people. He said we shouldn't be involved. I

haven't been worried about it even, although I am willing to go upon the stand and tell the whole story if it

will be any help toward putting right what is at present a great wrong to California."

"Yes, so would I," said Katy. "I'm not worryin' meself about the little baste any more than I would if it had

"I dunno what in the world you're going to think," said Katy "I dunno what in the world you're going to do."

Her face was so distressed that Linda's nimble brain flew to a conclusion. She tightened her arm across Katy's

It was a stunned Linda who slowly dropped her arm, stood erect, and lifted her head very high. She thought

"Linda," she said, "she always was such a pretty thing, and her ma didn't raise her to have the sense of a

peewee. If your pa had been let take her outdoors and grow her in the sun and the air, she would have been

bigger and broader, an' there would have been the truth of God's sunshine an' the glory of His rain about her.

Ye know, Linda, that she didn't ever have a common decent chance. It was curls that couldn't be shook out

and a nose that dassen't be sunburned and shoes that mustn't be scuffed and a dress that shouldn't be mussed,

from the day she was born. Ye couldn't jist honest say she had ever had a FAIR chance, now could ye?"

"No," said Linda conclusively' "no, Katherine O'Donovan, you could not. But what are we up against? Does

"I think she would like to," said Katy. "You go in and see her for yourself, lambie, before ye come to any

"You don't mean," said Linda in a marveling tone, "that she has been homesick, that she has come back to us

"You go and see her for yourself; and if you don't say she is the worst beat out and the tiredest mortal that ye

have ever seen you'll be surprisin' me. My God, Linda, they ain't nothin' in bein' rich if it can do to a girl what

"Oh, well," said Linda impatiently, "don't condemn all money because Eileen has not found happiness with it.

The trouble has been that Eileen's only chance to be rich came to her through the wrong kind of people."

"Well, will ye jist tell me, then," said Katy, "how it happened that Eileen's ma was a sister to that great beef

"Yes," said Linda, "I'll tell you. Eileen's mother had a big streak of the same coarseness and the same

vulgarity in HER nature, or she could not have reared Eileen as she did. She probably had been sent to school

and had better advantages than the boy through a designing mother of her own. Her first husband must have

been a man who greatly refined and educated her. We can't ever get away from the fact that Daddy believed

"Yes," said Katy, "but he was a fooled man. She wasn't what we thought she was. Many's the time I've stood

injustice about the accounts and household management because I wouldn't be wakin' him up to what he was

She handed her books to Katy, and went into the living room She concentrated on John Gilman first, and a

wee qualm of disgust crept through her soul when she saw that after weeks of suffering he was once more

ready to devote himself to Eileen. Linda marveled at the power a woman could hold over a man that would

force him to compromise with his intellect, his education and environment. Then she turned her attention to

Eileen, and the shock she received was informing. She studied her an instant incredulously, then she went to

"How do you do?" she said as cordially as was possible to her."This is unexpected."

Her mind was working rapidly, yet she could not recall ever having seen a woman quite so beautiful as

Eileen. She was very certain that the color on her cheeks was ebbing and rising with excitement; it was no

longer so deep as to be stationary. She was very certain that her eyes had not been darkened as to lids or

waxed as to lashes. Her hair was beautifully dressed in sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work

upon it. Her dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There was no simper on her lips, nothing

superficial. She was only a tired, homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy had cried

over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own heart. She put both arms protectingly around Eileen.

"Why, you poor little thing," she said wonderingly, "was it so damn' bad as all that?"

Eileen stood straight. She held herself rigidly. She merelY nodded. Then after a second she said: "Worse than

anything you could imagine, Linda. Being rich with people who have grown rich by accident is a dreadful

"So I have always imagined," said Linda. And then in her usual downright way she asked: "Why did you

"Homesick, little sister?" she asked lightly "Do you want to come here while you're getting ready to make a

Then Eileen swayed forward suddenly, buried her face in Linda's breast, and for the first time in her life

Linda saw and heard her cry, not from selfishness, not from anger, not from greed, but as an ordinary human

being cries when the heart is so full that nature relieves itself with tears. Linda closed her arms around her

"Finish all of it before you stop," she advised. "It's all right. You come straight home. You didn't leave me

any word, and I didn't know what to do with your things, but I couldn't feel that you would want to give up

such beautiful things that you had so enjoyed. We had planned for Marian to spend her summer vacation here

so I put her things in your suite and I had moved mine into the guest room, but I have had my room done over

and the guest room things are in there, and every scrap of yours is carefully put away. If that will do, you are

"Anything," she sobbed. "I'd rather have Katy's room than be shamed and humiliated and hurt any further.

Linda, I would almost like you to know my Aunt Callie, because you will never understand about her if you

don't. Her favorite pastime was to tell everyone we met how much the things I wore cost her."

"Cheer up !" she said. "We'll all have a gorgeous time together. I haven't the slightest ambition to know more

than that about your Aunt Callie. If my brain really had been acting properly I would never have dismantled

your room. I would have known that you could not endure her, and that you would come home just as you

should. It's all right, John, make yourself comfortable. I don't know what Katy has for dinner but she can

always find enough for an extra couple. Come Eileen, I'll help you to settle. Where is your luggage?"

"I brought back, Linda, just what I have on," said Eileen. "I will begin again where I left off. I realize that I

am not entitled to anything further from the Strong estate, but Uncle was so unhappy and John says it's all

rightreally I am the only blood heir to all they have; I might as well take a comfortable allowance from it. I

am to go to see them a few days of every month. I can endure that when I know I have John and you to come

When Eileen had been installed in Linda's old room Linda went down to the kitchen, shut the door behind

her, and leaning against it, laid her hand over her mouth to suppress a low laugh.

"Katy," she said, "I've been and gone and done it; I have put the perfect lady in my old room. That will be a

test of her sincerityeven dainty and pretty as it is since it's been done over. If she is sincere enough to

spend the summer getting ready to marry John Gilmanwhy that is all right, old girl. We can stand it, can't

"Yes," said Katy, "it's one of them infernal nuisances but we can stand it. I'm thinkin', from the looks of John

Gilman and his manner of spakin', that it ain't goin' to be but a very short time that he'll be waitin'."

"Katy," said Linda, "isn't this the most entertaining world? Doesn't it produce the most lightninglike

changes, and don't the most unexpected things happen? Sort of dazes me. I had planned to take a little run

with you and the Cat. Since we are havingno, I mustn't say guestssince John and Eileen have come

home, I'll have to give up that plan until after dinner, and then we'll go and take counsel with our souls and

see if we can figure out how we are going to solve this equation; and if you don t know what an equation is,

old dear heart, it's me with a warclub and you with a shillalah and Eileen between us, and be 'damned' to us

if we can't make an average, ordinary, decent human being out of her. Pin an apron on her in the morning,

Katy, and hand her a dust cloth and tell her to industrialize. We will help her with her trousseau, but she

"Ye know, lambie," whispered Katy suddenly, "this is a burnin' shame. The one thing I DIDN'T think about

"I scarcely know," said Linda; "it's difficult to say. Of course we can't carry out the plans we had made to

work here, exactly as we had intended, with Eileen in the house preparing to be married. But she tells me that

her uncle has made her a generous allowance, so probably it's environment and love she is needing much

more than help. It is barely possible, Katy, that after I have watched her a few days, if I decide she is in

genuine, sincere, heartwhole earnest, I might introduce her and John to my friend, 'Jane.' It is probable that

if I did, Eileen would not expect me to help her, and at the same time she wouldn't feel that I was acting

indifferently because I did not. We'll wait awhile, Katy, and see whether we skid before we put on the

"I don't know," said Linda thoughtfully. "If Marian is big enough to come here and spend the summer under

the same roof with Eileen and John Gilman, and have a really restful, enjoyable time out of it, she is bigger

than I am. Come up to the garret; I think Eileen has brought no more with her than she took away. We'll bring

her trunk down, put it in her room and lay the keys on top. Don't begin by treating her as a visitor; treat her as

if she were truly my sister. Tell her what you want and how you want it, exactly as you tell me and as I tell

you. If you see even a suspicion of any of the former objectionable tendencies popping up, let's check them

For a week Linda watched Eileen closely. At the end of that time she was sincere in her conviction that

Eileen had been severely chastened. When she came in contact with Peter Morrison or any other man they

met she was not immediately artificial. She had learned to be as natural with men as with other women. There

were no pretty postures, no softened vocal modulations, no childish nonsense on subjects upon which the

average child of these days displays the knowledge of the pastgeneration grandmother. When they visited

Peter Morrison's house it was easy to see that Eileen was interested, more interested than any of them ever

before had seen her in any subject outside of clothing and jewels. Her conduct in the Strong home had been

irreproachable. She had cared for her own room, quietly undertaken the duties of dusting and arranging the

rooms and cutting and bringing in flowers. She had gone to the kitchen and wiped dishes and asked to be

taught how to cook things of which John was particularly fond. She had been reasonable in the amount of

time she had spent on her shopping, and had repeatedly gone to Linda and shown interest in her concerns.

The result was that Linda at once displayed the same interest in anything pertaining to Eileen.

One afternoon Linda came home unusually early. She called for Eileen, told her to tie on her sunshade and be

ready for a short ride. Almost immediately she brought around the Bear Cat and when they were seated side

by side headed it toward the canyon. She stopped at the usual resting place, and together she and Eileen

walked down the lightdappled road bed. She pointed out things to Eileen, telling her what they were, to

what uses they could be put, while at the same time narrowly watching her. To her amazement she found that

Eileen was interested, that she was noticing things for herself, asking what they were. She wanted to know

the names of the singing birds. When a big bird trailed a waving shadow in front of her Linda explained how

she might distinguish an eagle from a hawk, a hawk from a vulture, a sea bird from those of the land. When

they reached the bridge Linda climbed down the embankment to gather cress. She was moved to protest when

Eileen followed and without saying a word began to assist her, but she restrained herself, for it suddenly

occurred to her that it would be an excellent thing for Eileen to think more of what she was doing and why

she was doing it than about whether she would wet her feet or muddy her fingers. So the protest became an

explanation that it was rather late for cress: the leaves toughened when it bloomed and were too peppery. The

only way it could be used agreeably was to work along the edges and select the small tender shoots that had

not yet matured to the flowering point. When they had an armload they went back to the car, and without any

explanation Linda drove into Los Angeles and stopped at the residence of Judge Whiting, not telling Eileen

"Friends of mine," said Linda lightly as she stepped from the car. "Fond of cress salad with their dinner. They

prepare it after the Jane Meredith recipe to which you called my attention, in Everybody's Home last winter.

Eileen stepped from the car and followed. Linda led the way round the sidewalk to where her quick ear had

located voices on the side lawn. She stopped at the kitchen door, handed in the cress, exchanged a few

laughing words with the cook, and then presented herself at the door of the summerhouse. Inside, his books

and papers spread over a worktable, sat Donald Whiting. One side of him his mother was busy darning his

socks; on the other his sister Louise was working with embroidery silk and small squares of gaily colored

linen. Linda entered with exactly the same selfpossession that characterized her at home. She shook hands

with Mrs. Whiting, Mary Louise, and Donald, and then she said quietly: "Eileen and I were gathering cress

and we stopped to leave you some for your dinner." With this explanation she introduced Eileen to Mrs.

Whiting. Mary Louise immediately sprang up and recalled their meeting at Riverside. Donald remembered a

meeting he did not mention. It was only a few minutes until Linda was seated beside Donald, interesting

herself in his lessons. Eileen begged to be shown the pretty handkerchiefs that Mary Louise was making. An

hour later Linda refused an invitation to dinner because Katy would be expecting them. When she arose to

go, Eileen was carrying a small square of bluegreen linen. Carefully pinned to it was a patch of white with a

spray of delicate flowers outlined upon it, and a skein of pink silk thread. She had been initiated into the

thrillingly absorbing feminine accomplishment of making sport handkerchiefs. When they left Eileen was

included naturally, casually, spontaneously, in their invitation to Linda to run in any time she would. Mary

Louise had said she would ride out with Donald in few days and see how the handkerchiefs were coming on,

and more instruction and different stitches and patterns were necessary, she would love to teach them. So

Linda realized that Mary Louise had been told about the trousseau. She knew, even lacking as she was in

feminine sophistication, that there were two open roads to the heart of a woman. One is a wedding and the

As the Bear Cat glided back to Lilac Valley, Eileen sat silent. For ten years she had coveted the entree to the

Whiting home perhaps more than any other in the city. Merely by being simple and natural, by living her life

as life presented itself each day, Linda with no effort whatever had made possible to Eileen the thing she so

deeply craved. Eileen was learning a new lesson each daysome days many of thembut none was more

amazing more simple, or struck deeper into her awakened consciousness. As she gazed with farseeing eye

on the blue walls of the valley Eileen was taking a mental inventory of her former self. One by one she was

arraigning all the old tricks she had used in her trade of getting on in the world. One by one she was

Because of these things Linda came home the next afternoon and left a bundle on Eileen's bed before she

made her way to her own room to busy herself with a head piece for Peter's latest article. She had taken down

the wasp picture and while she had not destroyed it she had turned the key of a very substantial lock upon it.

She was hard at work when she heard steps on the stairs. When Eileen entered, Linda smiled quizzically and

Eileen's face flamed with delight. She was a challenging little figure. None of them was accustomed to her

Linda reached for the telephone, called Gilman, and asked him if he could go to the beach for supper that

evening. He immediately replied that he would. Then she called Peter Morrison and asked him the same

question and when Peter answered affirmatively she told him to bring his car. Then she hastily put on her

own field clothes and ran to the kitchen to fill the lunch box. To Katy's delight Linda told her there would be

It was evening and the sun was moving slowly toward the horizon when they stopped the cars and went down

on the white sands of Santa Monica Bay. Eileen had been complimented until she was in a glow of delight.

She did not notice that in piling things out of the car for their beach supper Linda had handed her a shovel

and the blackened iron legs of a broiler. Everyone was loaded promiscuously as they took up their march

down to as near the water's edge as the sands were dry. Peter and John gathered driftwood. Linda improvised

two cooking places, one behind a rock for herself, the other under the little outdoor stove for Katy. Eileen

was instructed as to how to set up the beach table, spread the blankets beside it, and place the food upon it.

While Katy made coffee and toasted biscuit Linda was busy introducing her party to brigand beefsteak upon

four long steel skewers. The day had been warm. The light salt breeze from the sea was like a benediction.

Friendly gulls gathered on the white sands around them. Cunning little sea chickens worked in accord with

the tide: when the waves advanced they rose above them on wing; when they retreated they scampered over

the wet sand, hunting any small particles of food that might have been carried in. Out over the water big

brown pelicans went slowly fanning homeward; and white sea swallows drew wonderful pictures on the blue

night sky with the tips of their wings. For a few minutes at the reddest point of its setting the sun painted a

marvelous picture in a bank of white clouds. These piled up like a great rosy castle, and down the sky

roadway before it came a long procession of armored knights, red in the sun glow and riding huge red horses.

Then the colors mixed and faded and a long red bridge for a short time spanned the water, ending at their feet.

The gulls hunted the last scrap thrown them and went home. The swallows sought their high cliffs. The

insidiously alluring perfume of sand verbena rose like altar incense around them. Gilman spread a blanket,

piled the beach fire higher, and sitting beside Eileen, he drew her head to his shoulder and put his arm around

her. Possibly he could have been happier in a careless way if he had never suffered. It is very probable that

the poignant depth of exquisite happiness he felt in that hour never would have come to him had he not lost

Eileen and found her again so much more worth loving. Linda wandered down the beach until she reached

the lighthouse rocks. She climbed on a high one and sat watching the sea as it sprayed just below. Peter

"How did the landscape appeal to you when you left the campfire?" inquired Linda.

"I should think the night cry might very well be Eight o'clock and all's well," answered Peter.

"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world?'" Linda put it in the form of a question.

"It is for a number of people," said Linda. "I had a letter from Marian today. I had written her to ask if she

would come to us for the summer, in spite of the change in our plans; but Mr. Snow has made some plans of

his own. He is a very astute individual. He wanted Marian to marry him at once and she would not, so he took

her for a short visit to see his daughter at her grandmother's home in the northern part of the state. Marian fell

deeply in love with his little girl, and of course those people found Marian charming, just as rightminded

people would find her. When she saw how the little girl missed her father and how difficult it was for him to

leave her, and when she saw how she would be loved and appreciated in that fine family, she changed her

mind. Peter, we are going to be invited to San Francisco to see them married very shortly. Are you glad or

"I am very glad," said Peter heartily. "I make no concealment of my admiration for Miss Thorne but I am

very glad indeed that it is not her head that is to complete the decoration when you start the iris marching

"Well, that's all right," said Linda. "Of course you should have something to say about whose head finished

that picture. I can't contract to do more than set the iris. The thing about this I dread is that Marian and

Eugene are going to live in San Francisco, and I did so want her to make her home in Lilac Valley."

"That's too bad," said Peter sympathetically. "I know how you appreciate her, how deeply you love her. Do

"It will have to be," said Linda. "I've had to go on without Father, you know. If greater happiness seems to be

in store for Marian in San Francisco, all I can do is to efface myself and say 'Amen.' When the world is all

right for Marian, it is about as near all right as it can be for me. And did you ever see much more sincerely

Peter looked at Linda whimsically. He lowered his voice as if a sea urchin might hear and tattle.

"I delicately erased the stinger, fluffed up a ruffle, and put the sketch under lock and key. I should have

"She'll hold out or get her neck wrung," said Linda. "I truly think she has been redeemed. She has been born

again. She has a new heart and a new soul and a new impulse and a right conception of life. Why, Peter, she

"Isn't she?" cried Linda enthusiastically. "And doesn't having a soul and doesn't thinking about essential

things make the most remarkable difference in her? It is worth going through a fiery furnace to come out new

like that. I called her Abednego the other day, but she didn't know what I meant."

Then they sat silent and watched the sea for a long time. By and by the night air grew chill. Peter slipped

up the beach and came back with an Indian blanket. He put it very carefully around Linda's shoulders, and

when he went to resume his seat beside her he found one of her arms stretching it with a blanket corner for

him. So he sat down beside her and drew the corner over his shoulder; and because his right arm was very

much in his way, and it would have been very disagreeable if Linda had slipped from the rock and fallen into

the cold, salt, unsympathetic Pacific at nine o'clock at nightmerely to dispose of the arm comfortably and

to ensure her security, Peter put it around Linda and drew her up beside him very close. Linda did not seem to

notice. She sat quietly looking at the Pacific and thinking her own thoughts. When the fog became damp and

chill, she said they must be going, and so they went back to their cars and drove home through the sheer

wonder of the moonlight, through the perfume of the orange orchards, hearing the night song of the

A few days later Linda and Peter went to San Francisco and helped celebrate the marriage of Marian and

Eugene Snow. They left Marian in a home carefully designed to insure every comfort and convenience she

ever had planned, furnished in accordance with her desires. Both Linda and Peter were charmed with little

"It seems to me," said Linda, on the train going home, "that Marian will get more out of life, she will love

deeper, she will work harder, she will climb higher in her profession than she would have done if she had

married John. It is difficult sometimes, when things are happening, to realize that they are for the best, but I

really believe this thing has been for the level best. I think Marian is going to be a bigger woman in San

Francisco than she ever would have been in Lilac Valley. With that thought I must reconcile myself."

"And what about John?" asked Peter. "Is he going to be a bigger man with Eileen than he would have been

"No," said Linda, "he is not. He didn't do right and he'll have penalty to pay. Eileen is developing into a

lovable and truly beautiful woman, but she has not the intellect, nor the education, nor the impulse to

stimulate a man's mental processes and make him outdo himself the way Marian will. John will probably

never know it, but he will have to do his own stimulating; he will have to vision life for himself. He will have

to find his high hill and climb it with Eileen riding securely on his shoulders. It isn't really the pleasantest

thing in the world, it isn't truly the thing I wanted to do this summerhelping them outbut it has seemed

to be the work at hand, the thing Daddy probably would have wanted me to do, so it's up to me to do all I can

for them, just as I did all I could for Donald. One thing I shall always be delighted about. With my own ears I

heard the pronouncement: Donald had the Jap beaten; he was at the head of his class before Oka Sayye was

eliminated. The Jap knew it. His only chance lay in getting rid of his rival. Donald can take the excellent

record he has made in this race to start on this fall when he commences another battle against some other

"I think," she said, "his idea was that if he were one of fifty or one hundred leading men it would be

sufficient, but I insisted that if he wanted to be first with me, he would have to be first in his school work."

"I see," said Peter. "Linda, have you definitely decided that when you come to your homemaking hour,

"Oh, good gracious!" said Linda. "Who's talking about 'homes' and 'spending the remainder of lives'? Donald

and I are school friends, and we are good companions. You're as bad as Eileen. She's always trying to suggest

"Sapheads, all!" said Peter. "Well, allow me to congratulate you on having given Donald his spurs. I think it's

a very fine thing for him to start to college with the honor idea in his head. What about your Saturday

"They have died an unnatural death," said Linda. "Don and I fought for them, but the Judge and Mrs. Whiting

and Mary Louise were terrified for fear a bone might slip in Don's foot, or some revengeful friend or relative

of Oka Sayye lie in wait for us. They won't hear of our going any more. I go every Saturday and take Donald

for a very careful drive over a smooth road with the Bear Cat cursing our rate of speed all the way. All the

"Think I would be any good as a substitute when it comes to field work?" inquired Peter casually. "I have

looked at your desert garden so much I would know a Cotyledon if I saw it. I believe I could learn."

"You wouldn't have time to bother," objected Linda. "You're a man, with a man's business to transact in the

world. You have to hustle and earn money to pay for the bridge and changing the brook."

"But I had money to pay for the brook and the bridge before I agreed to them," said Peter.

"I hadn't intended to," said Peter; "if they are to be old, I won't have to do more than to ship them. In storage

in Virginia there are some very wonderful old mahogany and rosewood and rugs and bricabrac enough to

furnish the house I am building. The stuff belonged to a little old aunt of mine who left it to me in her will,

and it was with those things in mind that I began my house. The plans and finishing will fit that furniture

"Why, you lucky individual!" said Linda. "Nowhere in the world is there more beautiful furniture than in

some of those old homes in Virginia. There are old Flemish and Dutch and British and Italian pieces that

came into this country on early sailing vessels for the aristocrats. You don't mean that kind of stuff, do you,

"Why Peter, if you have furniture like that," cried Linda, "then all you need is Mary Louise."

"Linda," said Peter soberly, "you are trespassing on delicate ground again. You selected one wife for me and

your plan didn't work. When that furniture arrives and is installed I'll set about inducing the lady of my

dreams to come and occupy my dream house, in my own way. I never did give you that job. It was merely

"So it was," said Linda. "But you know I could set that iris and run that brook with more enthusiasm if I knew

"You do," said Peter. "You know her better than anyone else, even better than I. Put that in your mental pipe

"Saints preserve us!" cried Linda. "I believe the man is planning to take Katy away from me."

Linda entered enthusiastically upon the triple task of getting Donald in a proper frame of mind to start to

college with the ambition to do good work, of marrying off Eileen and John Gilman, and of giving her best

brain and heart to Jane Meredith. When the time came, Donald was ready to enter college comfortable and

When she was sure of Eileen past any reasonable doubt Linda took her and John to her workroom one

evening and showed them her book contract and the material she had ready, and gave them the best idea she

could of what yet remained to be done. She was not prepared for their wholehearted praise, for their delight

Alone, they took counsel as to how they could best help her, and decided that to be married at once and take a

long trip abroad would be the best way. That would leave Linda to work in quiet and with no interruption to

distract her attention. They could make their home arrangements when they returned.

When they had gone Linda worked persistently, but her book was not completed and the publishers were

hurrying her when the fall term of school opened. By the time the final chapter with its exquisite illustration

had been sent in, the first ones were coming back in proof, and with the proof came the materialized form of

Linda's design for her cover, and there was no Marian to consult about it. Linda worked until she was

confused. Then she piled the material in the Bear Cat and headed up Lilac Valley. As she came around the

curve and turned from the public road she saw that for the first time she might cross her bridge; it was waiting

for her. She heard the rejoicing of the water as it fell from stone to stone where it dipped under the road, and

as she swung across the bridge she saw that she might drive over the completed road which had been finished

in her weeks of absence. The windows told another story. Peter's furniture had come and he had been placing

it without telling her. She found the front door standing wide open, so she walked in. With her bundle on her

arm she made her way to Peter's workroom. When he looked up and saw her standing in his door he sprang to

"Peter," she said, "I've taken on more work than I can possibly finish on time, and I'm the lonesomest person

"I doubt that," said Peter gravely. "If you are any lonesomer than I am you must prove it."

"I have proved it," said Linda quietly. "If you had been as lonesome as I am you would have come to me. As

"I see," said Peter rather breathlessly. "What have you there, Linda? Why did you come?"

"I came for two reasons," said Linda. "I want to ask you about this stuff. Several times this summer you have

heard talk about Jane Meredith and the Everybody's Home articles. Ever read any of them, Peter?"

"Yes," said Peter, "I read all of them. Interested in home stuff these days myself."

"Well," said Linda, dumping her armload before Peter, "there's the proof and there's the illustration and

there's the cover design for a book to be made from that stuff. Peter, make your best boy and say 'pleased to

Peter secured both of Linda's hands and held them. First he looked at her, then he looked at the material she

"Never again," said Peter in a small voice, "will I credit myself with any deep discernment, any keen

penetration. How I could have read that matter and looked at those pictures and not seen you in and through

and over them is a thing I can't imagine. It's great, Linda, absolutely great! Of course I will help you any way

"Oh, the other doesn't amount to much," said Linda. "I only wanted the comfort of knowing whether, as soon

From previous experience with Linda, Peter had learned that a girl reared by men is not as other women. He

had supposed the other thing concerning which she had wanted to appeal to him was on par with her desire

for sympathy and help concerning her book. At her question, with her eyes frankly meeting his, Peter for an

instant felt lightheaded. He almost dodged, he was so sweepingly taken unawares. Linda was waiting and his

brain was not working. He tried to smile, but he knew she would not recognize as natural the expression of

Peter found his voice promptly. Only his God knew how much he wanted Linda, but there were conditions

that a man of Peter's soulfiber could not endure. More than life he wanted her, but he did not want her

asleep. He did not want to risk her awakening to a spoiled life and disappointed hopes.

"But you remember that I told you coming home from San Francisco that you knew the Lady of my Iris better

than anyone else, and that I was planning to take Katy, not from you, but with you."

"Of course I remember," said Linda. "That is why when Marian and Eileen and Donald and all my world

went past and left me standing desolate, and my work piled up until I couldn't see my way, I just started right

out to ask you if you would help me with the proof. Of course I knew you would be glad to do that and I

thought if you really meant in your heart that I was the one to complete your iris procession, it would be a

comfort to me during the hard work and the lonesome days to have it put in twosyllable English. Marian

"And Marian is eminently correct. You will have to give me an ordinary lifetime, Linda, in which to try to

make you understand exactly what this means to me. Perhaps I'll even have to invent new words in which to

"Oh, that's all right," said Linda. "It means a lot to me too. I can't tell you how much I think of you. That first

day, as soon as I put down the Cotyledon safely and tucked in my blouse, I would have put my hand in yours

and started around the world, if you had asked me to. I have the very highest esteem for you, Peter."

"Esteem, yes," said Peter slowly. "But Lindagirl, isn't the sort of alliance I am asking you to enter with me

"Yes, I think it is," said Linda. "But you needn't worry. I only wanted the comfort of knowing that I was not

utterly alone again, save for Katy. I'll stick to my book and to my fight for Senior honors all right."

Peter was blinking his eyes and fighting to breathe evenly. When he could speak he said as smoothly as

possible: "Of course, Linda. I'll do your proof for you and you may put all your time on class honors. It

merely occurred to me to wonder whether you realized the full and ultimate significance of what we are

"Possibly not, Peter," said Linda, smiling on him with utter confidence. "Everyone says I am my father's

daughter, and Father didn't live to coach me on being your iris decoration, as a woman would; but, Peter,

when the time comes, I have every confidence in your ability to teach me what you would like me to know

Making an effort to control himself Peter gathered up the material Linda had brought and taking her arm he

said casually: "I thoroughly agree with you, dear. You are sanely and health fully and beautifully right. Now

let's go and take Katy into our confidence, and then you shall show me your ideas before I begin work on

your proof. And after this, instead of you coming to me I shall always come to you whenever you can spare a

"Of course! That would be best," she said. "Peter, you are so satisfyingly satisfactory."