w her arms around the girl and kissed the top of her head and
cried over her and laughed at the same time and patted her and petted
her and ended by saying: "Oh, lambie, if only the master could be
knowin' it."

"But he does know, Katy," said Linda.

She went to her room, removed the beautiful dress and, arranging it on
a hanger, left it in her closet. Slipping into an old dressing gown, she
ran to her workroom and wrote a letter to Marian from herself. She tried
not to tell Marian the big, vital thing that was throbbing in her
heart all day concerning her work, the great secret that meant such
a wonderful thing to her, the thing that was beating in her heart and
fluttering behind her lips like a bird trying to escape its cage;
but she could tell her in detail of Eileen's undoubted removal to San
Francisco; she could tell her enough of the financial transactions of
the day to make her understand what had been happening in the past; and
she could tell of her latest interview with John Gilman. Once, as she
sat with her pen poised, thinking how to phrase a sentence, Linda said
to herself: "I wonder in my heart if he won't try to come crawfishing
back to Marian now, and if he does, I wonder, oh, how I wonder, what she
will do." Linda shut her lips very tight and stared up through her
skylight to the stars, as she was fast falling into a habit of doing
when she wanted inspiration.

"Well, I know one thing," she said to the shining things above her,
"Marian will do as she sees fit, of course, but if it were I, and any
man had discarded me as John Gilman discarded Marian, in case he ever
wanted to pick me up again he would find I was not there. Much as I plan
in my heart for the home and the man and the little people that I
hope to have some day, I would give up all of them before I would be
discarded and re-sought like that; and knowing Marian as I do, I have
a conviction that she will feel the same way. From the things she is
writing about this Snow man I think it is highly probable that he may
awake some day to learn that he is not so deeply grieved but that he
would like to have Marian to comfort him in his loneliness; and as for
his little girl I don't see where he could find a woman who would rear
her more judiciously and beautifully than Marian would."

She finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and then, taking out
a fresh sheet, she lettered in at the top of it, "INDIAN POTATOES" and
continued:

And very go