e would stop going with a
certain wild boy in the village of whom Leslie disapproved. Neither
did she know that Leslie had resolved never to go again without her
aunt along. So she sat at the window through the short winter
afternoon, and watched and waited in vain for the car to return; and
Allison came back at half-past six after basket-ball practice, and
still Leslie had not appeared.

CHAPTER XXI

There had been a little friction between Allison and Leslie about the
use of the car. Allison had always been most generous with it until
his sister took up this absurd intimacy with Myrtle Villers. It has
been rather understood between them that Leslie should use the car
afternoons when she wanted it, as Allison was busy with basket-ball
and other things; but several times Allison had objected to his
sister's taking her new friend out, and Leslie told him he was unfair.
After a heated discussion they had left the question still unsettled.
In fact, it did not seem that it could be settled, for Leslie was of
such a nature that great opposition only made her more firm; and Julia
Cloud advised her nephew to say nothing more for a time. Let Leslie
find out for herself the character of the girl she had made her
friend. It was really the only way she would learn not to be carried
away by flattery and high-sounding words. Allison, grumbling a little,
assented; but in his heart he still boiled with rage at the idea of
that girl's winding his sister around her little finger just for the
sake of using the car when she wanted it. It was not, perhaps, all
happening that for two or three days Allison had left the switch-key
where his sister could not find it, and a hot war of words ended in
Leslie's quietly ordering a new switch-key so that such a happening
would be impossible in future, She would have one of her own. A card
had come that very morning from the express office, notifying Leslie
that there was a package there waiting for her; so, when she started
out with Myrtle, she stopped and got it. She tossed it carelessly into
the car with a feeling of satisfaction that now Allison could not
hamper her movements any longer by his carelessness.

"Which way shall we go?" she asked as she always did when taking her
friends out, and Myrtle named a favorite pike where they often drove.

Out upon the smooth, white road they sped, rejoicing in the clear
beauty of the day and in the freedom with which they flew through
space. M