It all happened at the breakfast table, with the abruptness of an electric storm. Mr. Haydock spied the news first, in the paper which lay at his place. His mouth fell open and he stared at the sheet in dismay.
"'Mabel and Joyce Lightcap take off in tri-motored Ford for Paris!'" he read aloud to Linda and Louise.
"What?" gasped his daughter, jumping up from her chair and staring at the headlines over his shoulder.
"'In quest of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize offered by Mrs. Rodman Hallowell to the first girls who successfully fly from New York to Paris without a man,'" he continued.
Linda sat listening, speechless.
Louise went on reading where her father had stopped.
"'The Misses Lightcap, who are sisters, twenty-two and twenty-three years of age, had kept their plans secret until last night, when they arrived at Roosevelt Field in the tri-motored plane. They left at dawn this morning. Weather reports are favorable, and the radio will announce their progress throughout the course of the day and night....'"
Louise dropped back into her chair, not daring to show Linda any sympathy, lest her chum burst out crying. She was probably the only person who realized what that flight meant to Linda Carlton.
"Of course they may not get there," observed Mr. Haydock, soothingly. "You girls may still get your chance."
"Perhaps it's all for the best," observed his wife, unable to conceal her feeling of relief at the knowledge that now Louise probably would not go.