“Listen to it purr!” she cried to Donald. “If you hear it begin to growl, tell me.”
And then for a few minutes they rode like birds on the path of the wind. When they approached the entrance to the canyon, gradually Linda slowed down. She turned an exultant flashing face to Donald Whiting.
“That was a whizzer,” said the boy. “I’ll tell you I don’t know what I’d give to have a car like this for my very own. I’ll bet not another girl in Los Angeles has a car that can go like that.”
“And I don’t believe I have any business with it,” said Linda; “but since circumstances make it mine, I am going to keep it and I am going to drive it.”
“Of course you are,” said Donald emphatically. “Don’t you ever let anybody fool you out of this car, because if they wanted to, it would be just because they are jealous to think they haven’t one that will go as fast.”
“There’s not the slightest possibility of my giving it up so long as I can make the engine turn over,” she said. “I told you how Father always took me around with him, and there’s nothing in this world I am so sure of as I am sure that I am spoiled for a house cat. I have probably less feminine sophistication than any girl of my age in the world, and I probably know more about camping and fishing and the scientific why and wherefore of all outdoors than most of them. I just naturally had such a heavenly time with Daddy that it never has hurt my feelings to be left out of any dance or party that ever was given. The one thing that has hurt is the isolation. Since I lost Daddy I haven’t any one but Katy. Sometimes, when I see a couple of nice, interesting girls visiting with their heads together, a great feeling of envy wells up in my soul, and I wish with all my heart that I had such a friend.”
“Ever try to make one?” asked Donald. “There are mighty fine girls in the High School.”
“I have seen several that I thought I would like to be friends with,” said Linda, “but I am so lacking in feminine graces that I haven’t known how to make advances, in the first place, and I haven’t had the courage, in the second.”
“I wish my sister were not so much older than you,” said Donald.
“How old is your sister?” inquired Linda.