n stepped from the car and followed. Linda led the way round the
sidewalk to where her quick ear had located voices on the side lawn.
She stopped at the kitchen door, handed in the cress, exchanged a few
laughing words with the cook, and then presented herself at the door of
the summerhouse. Inside, his books and papers spread over a worktable,
sat Donald Whiting. One side of him his mother was busy darning his
socks; on the other his sister Louise was working with embroidery silk
and small squares of gaily colored linen. Linda entered with exactly
the same self-possession that characterized her at home. She shook hands
with Mrs. Whiting, Mary Louise, and Donald, and then she said quietly:
"Eileen and I were gathering cress and we stopped to leave you some
for your dinner." With this explanation she introduced Eileen to Mrs.
Whiting. Mary Louise immediately sprang up and recalled their meeting at
Riverside. Donald remembered a meeting he did not mention. It was only a
few minutes until Linda was seated beside Donald, interesting herself
in his lessons. Eileen begged to be shown the pretty handkerchiefs that
Mary Louise was making. An hour later Linda refused an invitation to
dinner because Katy would be expecting them. When she arose to go,
Eileen was carrying a small square of blue-green linen. Carefully pinned
to it was a patch of white with a spray of delicate flowers outlined
upon it, and a skein of pink silk thread. She had been initiated into
the thrillingly absorbing feminine accomplishment of making sport
handkerchiefs. When they left Eileen was included naturally, casually,
spontaneously, in their invitation to Linda to run in any time she
would. Mary Louise had said she would ride out with Donald in few days
and see how the handkerchiefs were coming on, and more instruction and
different stitches and patterns were necessary, she would love to
teach them. So Linda realized that Mary Louise had been told about the
trousseau. She knew, even lacking as she was in feminine sophistication,
that there were two open roads to the heart of a woman. One is a wedding
and the other is a baby. The lure of either is irresistible.

As the Bear Cat glided back to Lilac Valley, Eileen sat silent. For ten
years she had coveted the entree to the Whiting home perhaps more than
any other in the city. Merely by being simple and natural, by living her
life as life presented itself each day, Linda with no effort whatever
had made possi