all the work and use the greater part of my time to make you
comfortable."

Linda suddenly drew back. Her body seemed to recoil, but her
head thrust forward as if to bring her eyes in better range to
read Eileen's face.

"That is utterly unjust, Eileen," she cried.

Then two at a time she rushed the stairs in a race for her room.



CHAPTER XXIII. The Day of Jubilee

Linda started to school half an hour earlier Wednesday morning
because that was the day for her weekly trip to the Post Office
for any mail which might have come to her under the name of Jane
Meredith. She had hard work to keep down her color when she
recognized the heavy gray envelope used by the editor of
Everybody's Home. As she turned from the window with it in her
fingers she was trembling slightly and wondering whether she
could have a minute's seclusion to face the answer which her last
letter might have brought. There was a small alcove beside a
public desk at one side of the room. Linda stepped into this,
tore open the envelope and slipped out the sheet it contained.
Dazedly she stared at the slip that fell from it. Slowly the
color left her cheeks and then came rushing back from her
surcharged heart until her very ears were red, because that slip
was very manifestly a cheque for five hundred dollars. Mentally