l right
reproducing monkey flowers and lilies for pastime, but for serious
business, for real life work, I would rather do Peter's brainstorming,
heart-thrilling pictures than my merely pretty ones. On the subject of
Peter, I must remember in the morning to take those old books he gave me
to Donald. I believe that from one of them he is going to get the very
material he needs to down the Jap in philosophy. And they are not text
books which proves that Peter must have been digging into the subject
and hunted them up in some second-hand store, or even sent away an order
for them."

In the hall the next morning Linda stopped Donald and gave him the
books. In the early stages of their friendship she had looked at him
under half-closed lids and waited to see whether he intended stopping to
say a word with her when they passed each other or came down the halls
together. She knew that their acquaintance would be noted and commented
upon, and she knew how ready the other girls would be to say that
she was bold and forward, so she was careful to let Donald make the
advances, until he had called to her so often, and had dug flowers and
left his friends waiting at her door while he delivered them, that
she felt free to address him as she chose. He had shown any interested
person in the high school that he was her friend, that he was speaking
to her exactly as he did to girls he had known from childhood. He was
very popular among the boys and girls of his class and the whole school.
His friendship, coming at the time of Linda's rebellion on the subject
of clothes, had developed a tendency to bring her other friendships.
Boys who never had known she was in existence followed Donald's example
in stopping her to say a word now and then. Girls who had politely
ignored her now found things to say; and several invitations she had
not had leisure to accept had been sent to her for afternoon and evening
entertainments among the young people. Linda had laid out for herself
something of a task in deciding to be the mental leader of her class.
There were good brains in plenty among the other pupils. It was only by
work, concentration, and purpose, only by having a mind keenly alert,
by independent investigation and introducing new points of view that she
could hold her prestige. Up to the receipt of her letter containing the
offer to publish her book she had been able rigorously to exclude from
her mind the personality and the undertakings of