Still Linda said nothing. Silently she ate her grapefruit and drank her coffee. But she believed she would choke if she tried to swallow any toast.
At last the ordeal was over, and she and Louise rose from the table, about to go into the living-room with the newspaper, when a telegram arrived for the latter, containing another startling piece of news, this time from Ted Mackay.
"Transferred to Wichita, Kansas," Louise read aloud. "Beginning May first. Can't we be married now?... Arriving Spring City tonight."
Louise dropped into a chair and burst out laughing. What a relief from the tension!
"Might as well do it!" she cried. "Now that these girls have stolen the honors!"
"You really would like to be married next week?" inquired her mother.
"Yes, if Ted is going so far away. Of course I'll wait to see if these Lightcap women really arrive, but we ought to hear tonight...." She led Linda up to their bedroom.
"I really didn't want to go back to school anyway," she explained, when the girls were alone. "I've learned all I wanted to."
"You mean you'll always have Ted, in case things go wrong with your plane?" asked Linda. It was the first time she had spoken since she had heard the breath taking news.
"That's about it. I could never hope to learn as much as he knows. Besides, I don't want to. Just have a license to fly—that's my ambition."