"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.