ouette of the
near recent past. Do you feel that badly about giving up a little money
and authority?"

"I never professed to have the slightest authority over you," said
Eileen very primly, as she drew back in the shadows. "You have come and
gone exactly as you pleased. All I ever tried to do was to keep up a
decent appearance before the neighbors and make financial ends meet."

"That never seemed to wear on you as something seems to do now," said
Linda. "I am thankful that this week ends it. I was looking for you
because I wanted to tell you to be sure not to make any date that
will keep you from meeting me at the office of the president of the
Consolidated Bank Thursday afternoon. I am going to arrange with John
to be there and it shouldn't take fifteen minutes to run through matters
and divide the income in a fair way between us. I am willing for you to
go on paying the bills and ordering for the house as you have been."

"Certainly you are," sneered Eileen. "You are quite willing for all the
work and use the greater part of my time to make you comfortable."

Linda suddenly drew back. Her body seemed to recoil, but her head thrust
forward as if to bring her eyes in better range to read Eileen's face.

"That is utterly unjust, Eileen," she cried.

Then two at a time she rushed the stairs in a race for her room.

CHAPTER XXIII. The Day of Jubilee

Linda started to school half an hour earlier Wednesday morning because
that was the day for her weekly trip to the Post Office for any mail
which might have come to her under the name of Jane Meredith. She had
hard work to keep down her color when she recognized the heavy gray
envelope used by the editor of Everybody's Home. As she turned from the
window with it in her fingers she was trembling slightly and wondering
whether she could have a minute's seclusion to face the answer which her
last letter might have brought. There was a small alcove beside a public
desk at one side of the room. Linda stepped into this, tore open the
envelope and slipped out the sheet it contained. Dazedly she stared at
the slip that fell from it. Slowly the color left her cheeks and then
came rushing back from her surcharged heart until her very ears were
red, because that slip was very manifestly a cheque for five hundred
dollars. Mentally and physically Linda shook herself, then she
straightened to full height, tensing her muscles and holding the sheet
before her with a hand on each