CHAPTER XX
BEHIND THE BIRCHES
When Linda wrote to Chicago for the dresses to be sent on, she asked the caretaker of the house to send a photograph of her mother which she would find in her dresser drawer.
The woman had been in doubt as to which picture was wanted, as there were several in the box indicated, so she had packed box and all, and it now lay on Linda's table waiting to be opened.
When the radiant little Cape girl had carried downstairs the last of her possessions and Mrs. Porter had gone to her own room, Linda turned her attention to this box.
Taking off the string she lifted the cover, and straight up into her eyes looked Bertram King. The likeness was a striking one and color flowed over her face. As she gazed, the thought came to her that Bertram must have consummated a good business deal on the day he sat for this.
There was lurking humor in the eyes and lips. It was Bertram at his best: his most prosperous. A clean-cut face, she thought, as she looked, a well-born face: intelligent, full of character and confidence.
"Overconfidence," murmured the girl, and turned the picture face down. She closed her eyes in endurance of the flood of associations the photograph had evoked, and stood motionless thus for a minute before delving deeper into the box. It held pictures of several of her friends, among them one of Fred Whitcomb. Her sad lips smiled as she encountered his wide-awake countenance.
"Good old Fred," she thought. "Some day I must write to him."
She found her mother's pictures and those of several girl friends: also one of Mrs. Porter. Some of these she left out; but the one of Bertram King went back into the box. She took one more glance at it and the veiled humor in the eyes seemed to mock her. Face down it went in, quickly, the cover was put on, and the whole placed in her closet.