d 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 should think you'd feel queer," said Donald.

"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 Eternity in a second."

"Oh, I remember!" cried the boy.

Linda's face paled slightly.

"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, and one must take one's risks."

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