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 the very deep and
wholesome interest abiding in my heart for you.

"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 g