Lynette Hope Oliver, known to all as Lintie, was an irrepressibly imaginative young girl, prone to getting in trouble for her storytelling and high spirits. The youngest senior at the somewhat drab St. Anne's Orphanage, the New Zealand girl hadn't a soul in the world who belonged to her, save her fellow orphans. When she joined the Hillingdon Club - a special children's section of the local newspaper, set up to encourage young people in writing and other forms of creative endeavor - she made new friends, earned some prize money, and made a name for herself as a writer. That name however, was Lynette Hope, as Lintie embarked on a double-life, determined not to let the authorities at the orphanage know what she was up to. Her earnings went toward supporting some of her fellow St. Anne's girls, in their various fields of interest, but her own dream remained the same: finding a family...

New Zealand children's author Clare Mallory - real name Winifred Constance McQuilkan Hall - published ten books from 1947 through 1951, nine of them school stories. The Two Linties, originally published in 1950, and the second to last of ten titles to come out, was the single non school-story, although school does figure in it. Nowhere near Mallory's best, it is nevertheless a sweet tale, featuring a winsome heroine with a positive, can-do attitude, and a distinctly unselfish character. I enjoyed reading Lintie's story, although perhaps not as much as I had expected to, given my great love of many of Mallory's other books. It's interesting to note that the author did write two other non-school-stories - Candy Neville and Anna ~ Charlotte - which were published posthumously in 2012 and 2016, respectively, as I think these hitherto unpublished manuscripts were in fact superior to The Two Linties. Leaving that aside, this was still quite enjoyable, and is one I would recommend to Clare Mallory fans, and to readers interested in vintage New Zealand children's fare, or in orphan stories. ( )