The latter looked troubled. She had been trying for a year—ever since Linda's father had given her an Arrow Pursuit bi-plane for graduation—to keep the girl out of the air as much as possible, but she had not succeeded. The Carltons were comfortably well-off, and it was Miss Carlton's wish that Linda go in for society, and make a good marriage. But though Linda enjoyed occasional parties as much as any normal young person, she had a serious purpose in life, to make flying her career just as a young man would.
"You won't go to Green Falls—with all the rest of the crowd?" asked Miss Carlton, anxiously.
"I can't, Aunt Emily. I—I—can't spare the time. I am trying to get a job."
"A job? But you don't need money. Your father's business is dong nicely——"
"Oh, it isn't the money I want," interrupted the girl. "It's the experience."
Linda finished dressing and came down stairs to meet the young woman who was waiting for her. The latter insisted that she eat her breakfast while they talked.
"Honestly, I haven't done a thing interesting to the world since my ocean flight!" Linda said. "Except win my licenses, and all the graduates' names have already been listed in the papers."
The reporter smiled at her as if she were a child.
"My dear girl," she explained, "you are front-page news now, no matter what you do. You are Queen of the Air, and will be until some other woman does something more daring than your flight to Paris alone. So everything you do interests the public. Naturally they want to know what you are planning for the summer. Flying to South America, or Alaska? And what kind of plane do you intend to buy next, since you sold your Bellanca in Paris?"
Linda yawned, and fingered her mail—a great pile of letters beside her plate. Invitations, mostly from the younger set in Spring City, for she was very popular.