is good advice for which I thank
you."

CHAPTER V. The Smoke of Battle

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, and her
shoes flatly set on the floor.

"Well, I'll be darned!" she ejaculated, and then walked to where she
could face Eileen, and seated herself without making any attempt to
conceal her amazement.

"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."

For one long instant Linda was too amazed to speak. Then she recovered
herself.

"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 to the Bachelors' Ball?"

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 break. She laughed softly.

"On rare occasions, I grant it. Of course a little swear slips out
sometimes. What I am trying to point out is that you do too much of it."

"How did you ever get the idea," said Linda, "that I wanted to be
popular and have hosts of friends? What would I do with them if I had
them?"

"Why, use them, my child, use them," answered Eileen promptly.

"Let's cut this," said Linda tersely. "I am not your child. I'm