ild 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 to leap from the window and sport on the wind like a driven
leaf.

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 admitted to the office of the president.
Mr. Worthington rose as she came in.

"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
lawyers?"

"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 world. Have you a financial secret?"

"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