a game little sport, Miss Carlton!"
"I don't see why," returned Linda. "People jump from planes with parachutes every day!"
"I know. But it was all so sudden. And it is always a pity when anyone's first flight ends disastrously. It makes you feel that you never want to see an airplane again."
"Well, it won't make me feel that way," replied the girl, lightly. "I'd go up again right away if you'd take me."
"I'm afraid I can't. But I'm mighty glad to hear you talk that way. I think you're cut out for a flier. Now let's hunt the wreck."
After they had located the damaged plane, and examined its shattered pieces, they hiked back to the aviation field together, talking all the while about flying. Linda asked Ted one question after another, which he answered as well as he could without having a plane to demonstrate, and he promised to lend her some books on the subject.
"You must come over and take a course of instruction at our Flying School," he advised. "As soon as you can."
"Oh, I hope to!" she assured him, eagerly. "Maybe after I graduate. Why, I'm almost eighteen! Most boys of my age who cared as much about it as I do would have been flying a couple of years. Because you can get a license when you're sixteen, can't you?"
"Yes… It's going to be fun to teach you," he added, as they approached the field, and Linda stopped beside her car. "Good-by! I'll expect to see you soon!"
His hope, however, was not fulfilled until two weeks later, when Linda again slipped over to the field, between engagements, for another ride in the air. This time she was only one among a group of visitors, and she went up in a plane that was both new and trustworthy.
Her time was so limited – it was a week before Commencement – that she had only chance for a few words with Ted Mackay. She told him that her class-day was the following Friday, and she timidly invited him to a dance which she was giving at her home the night before the event.
"Thanks awfully," he said, more thrilled than he dared tell her at the invitation, "but I couldn't possibly come… You see, Miss Carlton – I wouldn't fit in with your set."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Linda in disappointment, "We're not snobs, just because we go to Miss Graham's school!"
"Well, then, put it this way," he added: "I'm absolutely on my own – and I don't even have evening clothes!"
She smiled at his frankness, but she did not know that he told only part of his story – that he was supporting his mother and helping to put his younger sister through High School.
"All right, then – have it your own way – Ted," she agreed, holding out her hand. "I'll hope to see you some time after class-day."
From that hour on, it seemed as if every moment was filled with more things than she could possibly do. At last Friday came – as hot as any day in mid-summer, though it was still early June.
Soon after two o'clock the audience began to arrive, and at half-past, the twenty-two graduates, in their white dresses, with their large bouquets or American Beauties or pink rose-buds, filed in to take their seats on the flower-decked platform in the garden of the school grounds.
Fans waved, and the flowers wilted visibly, but nobody seemed to notice. For with the exercises the fun began, and everybody listened intently to the jokes and the compliments which came in turn to each and every member of Linda Carlton's class.
After Louise Haydock, the president, made her brief speech of greeting, the presenter took charge, and her remarks and her presents were clever without being cruel. Most of the latter she had purchased from the five-and-ten, but they all carried a point. To Linda Carlton she gave a toy car, because she thought that was what the latter was most interested in, and then she asked her to wait a moment, that she had something else for her.
Linda stood still, smiling shyly, and wondering whether her next gift would have anything to do with airplanes.
"Linda," continued the presenter, "we have this bracelet for you – in token of our affection. You have been voted the most popular girl in the class."
"Oh!" exclaimed Linda, and her eyelids fluttered in embarrassment. She was so surprised that she didn't know what to say. Some of the other girls, who had been secretly hoping for this honor, which was always kept as a surprise until class-day, had even prepared speeches. But Linda had never given the matter a thought.
"I – I – thank you so much," she finally managed to stammer, as she stepped forward to receive the bracelet.
The audience stirred and clapped, for the girl was a favorite with everybody in Spring City.
"She certainly looks sweet today," whispered Mrs. Haydock, the mother of Linda's best friend. "There is nothing so becoming as white."
"Yes," agreed her aunt, who had taken care of Linda ever since her own mother had died when she was only a baby, "but I do wish she hadn't worn those flowers. She had half a dozen bouquets of American Beauties, and she picked out those ordinary pink roses! Sometimes Linda is queer."
"Yes, but who sent them?" inquired the other woman. "Probably the reason lies there! Ralph Clavering?"
"Ralph Clavering wouldn't buy a cheap bouquet like that – with all his father's millions!" exclaimed Miss Carlton. "No; he did send flowers, but Linda didn't wear them. These had no card."
Their conversation stopped abruptly, for the class prophet was being introduced. Twenty-one girls on the platform leaned forward expectantly, anxious to hear what the future held in store for them. Of course nobody actually believed that this girl could foretell their lives, but it was always fascinating to speculate about their fortunes.
She began with the customary jokes.
"Sara Wheeler" (the thinnest girl in the class), "is going into the food business, but will eat up the profits. However, she'll weigh two hundred pounds before she goes bankrupt…
"Sue Emery, on the contrary, will finally succeed in reducing her weight – when she gets away from these girls and stops talking about it, instead of doing it – until she becomes Hollywood's star dancer…
"Linda Carlton and Louise Haydock – the double l's, we call them, because they are always together – will both marry wealthy men and become the society leaders of Spring City…"
At these words, Linda's Aunt Emily nudged Louise's mother, and smiled.
"That would suit us, wouldn't it, Mrs. Haydock?" she asked.
"Just what we want for our girls!" nodded her companion, in satisfaction.
It was over at last, the fun and the excitement, the class-day that the girls would keep in their memories for the rest of their lives. Hot, but happy, the graduates came down from the platform to find their friends and their families. Some of them wanted to linger, to talk things over, but Linda Carlton was anxious to get away. It had been wonderful to receive that beautiful bracelet, but somehow it would spoil it to talk about it.
And, in spite of all her happiness, there was a little hurt in her heart. Her father hadn't come home for his only child's graduation!
She came to where her aunt was standing, and put her arm through hers.
"Are you ready, Aunt Emily?" she asked.
"Of course, dear – if you want to
