l
him where to head in, and I'll punch his head if he doesn't do it
promptly."

"Of course you will," said his mother reassuringly; "and I'll go with
you and we'll see to it that he attends strictly to his own affairs."

Donald burst out laughing, exactly as his mother in her heart had hoped
that he would.

"Yes, I've got a hand-painted picture of myself starting to Lilac Valley
to fight a man who is butting in with my girl, and taking my mother
along to help me beat him up," he said.

Mrs. Whiting put her arms around her boy, kissed him tenderly, and
smoothed his hair, and then turned out the lights and slipped from the
room. But in the clear moonlight as she closed the door she could see
that a boyish grin was twisting his lips, and she went down to tell the
Judge that he need not worry. If his boy were irreparably hurt anywhere,
it was in his foot.

CHAPTER XXXII. How the Wasp Built Her Nest

The following weeks were very happy for Linda. When the cast was removed
from Donald's foot and it was found that a year or two of care would
put him even on the athletic fields and the dancing floor again, she was
greatly relieved.

She lacked words in which to express her joy that Marian was rapidly
coming into happiness. She was so very busy with her school work, with
doing all she could to help Donald with his, with her "Jane Meredith"
articles, with hunting and working out material for her book, that she
never had many minutes at a time for introspection. When she did have
a few she sometimes pondered deeply as to whether Marian had been
altogether sincere in the last letter she had written her in their
correspondence, but she was so delighted in the outcome that if she did
at times have the same doubt in a fleeting form that had not been in
the least fleeting with Peter Morrison, she dismissed it as rapidly as
possible. When things were so very good as they were at that time, why
try to improve them?

One evening as she came from school, thinking that she would take Katy
for a short run in the Bear Cat before dinner, she noticed a red head
prominent in the front yard as she neared home. When she turned in at
the front walk and crossed the lawn she would have been willing to wager
quite a sum that Katy had been crying.

"Why, old dear," said Linda, putting her arms around her, "if anything
has gone wrong with you I will certainly take to the warpath, instanter.
I can't even imagine what could be troubling yo