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."

"I'll be here before the birds are awake," promised Donald.

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 youthful today. What do you know about that?"

Then he hurried on to overtake the crowd of boys he had left, Linda's
heart was racing in her breast.

Turning, she re-entered 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, gray-haired man with quick, blue-gray 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 standing and stretched out her hand.

"Judge Whiting?" she asked.

"Yes," said the Judge.

"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 through very interesting reports
that my son brings home."

"Yes, it is about Donald that I came to see you," said Linda.

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,