"Mollie," returned Betty, and there was a strange new thrill in her voice, that made her friend look at her quickly, "I'm happy, happy, happy! I thought I knew what it was to be happy before, but I never did. I just feel like shouting aloud and hugging everybody I see. Oh, I never dreamed we'd make such a success of it!"

"It isn't over yet, though," said Mollie, beginning to feel a little panicky. "We've got to speak our little piece yet, and I never did feel quite sure of that last line."

"Oh, goodness, don't begin to worry now," cried Betty. "Our last rehearsal was perfect, and we've never fallen down in anything we've tried to do yet."

"Well, there has to be a beginning to everything, hasn't there?" argued Mollie pessimistically. "I'm perfectly sure I'm going to forget that last line. I feel it coming on."

"Well, then you deserve to lose it," said Betty, knowing very well how best to handle Mollie. "You'll do just whatever you think you're going to do, and if you think you're going to fail, you'll fail!"

"I'm not going to fail any more than you are, Betty Nelson," cried Mollie, her eyes blazing. "I've never seen anything yet I couldn't do as well as you."

"Goodness, what's this?" cried gentle Amy, aghast, coming upon the two suddenly. "You're not quarreling, are you?"

"What did it sound like—talk about the weather?" asked Mollie sarcastically. "You just wait and see what I'll do, Betty Nelson!" and she marched out with her nose in the air.

"Oh, dear," sighed Amy; "and I thought everything was going so beautifully."

"It is," chuckled Betty, and hustled the bewildered Amy out another door of the tent.

Then came Allen, dressed as a herald of olden times, and blew in golden notes, a message to the people scattered about the lawn, that the real attraction of the evening was about to begin.

The girls had worried a little for fear the big tent would not be able to accommodate all the guests, so great had been their response to the call of patriotism, but it was found to their intense relief that, although a few had to stand at the back, all could be admitted.

The first part of the program consisted of music, recitations and some very cleverly arranged tableaux. Everything was remarkably good, as the hearty applause testified, and behind the scenes everywhere, was jubilation.

"Now if we only do as well," said Grace, as the improvised curtain dropped, signaling the intermission, "we'll not have anything to worry about."

"We will," said Betty confidently. "Jean, you did wonderfully," she added, to the girl who had been the elocutionist of the evening. "I thought it was wonderful at the last rehearsal, but you outdid yourself to-night. And you, too, Larry. Oh, it's such a success!"

They fairly danced with impatience during the intermission, and were ready with their costumes and stage settings before the ten minutes was up.

"Oh, I'm so frightened, I can hardly stand up," chattered Amy as she and Betty stood together, waiting for the endless last minute to drag past. "Betty, if this is stage fright, it's a lot worse than I thought. I can't think of a line I have to say."

"Well, you'd better not keep that up too long," returned Betty grimly. "It might be serious. There, that's Allen's cue."

Local talent had even produced an orchestra for the sketch, and although once in a while, the cornetist forgot to toot, or the first violin became excited and left the rest of his flock behind to follow him as best it might, still the music was pretty good and added considerably to the general effect.

And the play was the crowning glory of the evening! The stage fright which had threatened to overwhelm the actors, magically disappeared when they found themselves put upon their mettle, and they frolicked through the play, with an ease and naive enjoyment that delighted their audience and brought storms of applause.

The play was called, "A Day in Court." It was a professional production which had been almost completely rewritten by Allen and Betty. The judge was a woman, and the various characters brought before her, were all more or less funny. One character had originally been a German servant girl, suing her mistress for wages, but this character, on account of the war, was changed to Irish, and was impersonated by Amy with marked success.

Betty was the woman judge, and the way she laid down the law was most marvelous, and brought forth many peals of laughter.

Will, in a most ridiculous costume, performed the offices of court clerk.

Mollie impersonated a French flower girl, who had failed to receive pay for bouquets sold to a local dude, a part played by Roy Anderson, and it developed during the court scene, that the dude was engaged to two girls at once, impersonated by Grace and another girl.

There was an irate uncle of one of the girls, none other than Frank Haley, and Allen as the brother of the other girl, who also demanded satisfaction, and the mix-up in the courtroom was most realistic.

"About the funniest thing I ever saw in my life," was Mr. Nelson's comment.

"They are certainly doing remarkably well," answered Mrs. Billette, who chanced to sit near by.

"If those youngsters keep on doing as well as that, they'll all want to go on the professional stage," remarked Mr. Ford.

All during the ice cream and cake part of the entertainment the young performers were fted and congratulated, till they began, as Roy expressed it, "to feel themselves some punkins."

It was late before the last guest had departed, still laughingly bandying jests back and forth, and the Little Captain and the group of her particular chums and followers were left alone. Then—

"I wish it were beginning all over again," said Amy, leaning her head against a pillar of the porch and gazing dreamily up at the stars. "I never had such a good time in my life."

"It seems to me I'm always saying that," sighed Betty, sinking into the hammock, and laughing up at Allen, as he stood before her. "It's wonderful when life is just a succession of good times."

"Betty," he answered, sitting down beside her, and finding her hand under cover of the darkness, "that's my one ambition—to make life for you just a 'succession of good times.'"

"But I guess that never happens to anybody," she said, trying to speak lightly. "And I don't know that just having good times is a very big ambition. No—I—didn't mean that, Allen," she added quickly, seeing she had hurt him. "You've always been altogether too good to me. I—I guess I don't deserve it."

"There's nothing half good enough for you," said Allen fervently. "Betty," he added, after a slight pause, "I—I may have to go away pretty soon, and before I go I want you to know——"

"Say, Allen, are you going home like a respectable citizen, or shall we have to use force?" It was Roy who accosted him, and Allen muttered something under his breath.

"I'm going home when I get good and ready," he was beginning, when Betty herself jumped to her feet and held out a hand to him.

"It is getting late," she said, "and we're all going to meet to-morrow, anyway, so we won't even say good-bye. Au revoir, everybody. It's been such a night!"

As she stood on the porch waving her hand to them, Allen hesitated a moment, started forward, then ran back again.

"There will come a night," he whispered, close in her ear, "when you won't get rid of me so easily."

And Betty, left alone, smiled a new smile at the stars.



CHAPTER XI

A SLACKER?

Two weeks went by after the great night, two weeks of ceaseless activity. The fame of Betty's lawn party had spread all over Deepdale, and countless smaller affairs on the same order had been given. As imitation is always the sincerest flattery, the girls were delighted.

"For we have the fun of knowing we started it," Mollie had said.

"Yes," said Betty. "We've made people understand that the Red Cross needs money, but, girls, there's another branch of the war work that isn't receiving much attention."

"What's that?" queried Grace, interested. It was just like Betty to have things entirely thought out before she said anything about them. "I never saw anybody with so many plans as you, Betty. You make my head swim."

"Well, there's the Y.W.C.A.," Betty explained. "It's doing wonderful work, but it will need a great deal more money than it has now, to keep it up in these war times."

"Goodness," said Amy. "I wish we'd thought about it sooner. The boys are sure they're going to be called every day, and if we took time to get up anything like the entertainment we had before, we couldn't have them in it."

"Oh, we couldn't give an affair like that without the boys," said Mollie decidedly, a fact which she would never have admitted in the hearing of the young men themselves. "And I'd hate to give anything tame, after the big success we had with the other one."

"That's just it," Betty pursued, holding a sock up to the light and regarding it critically. "I met Mrs. Barton Ross to-day——"

"Oh, isn't she lovely?" Amy interrupted enthusiastically. "By the time you've talked with her five minutes you're willing to promise her anything in the world."

"Goodness, I wish I had a gift like that," said Grace. "I could talk all day and nobody'd do anything for me."

"That's gratitude, isn't it?" said Mollie, in an aggrieved tone. "Here I walk two whole blocks out of my way, to buy you a box of candy when you didn't even ask me to——"

"Did you say you bought that box of candy for me?" asked Grace bitterly, eying the alluring box, where it lay in Mollie's lap. "Every time I want one I have to look extra sweet and go down on my knees."

"More ingratitude," sighed Mollie. "Didn't I hear the doctor say you must stop eating so much ice cream and candy, if you wanted to keep your marvelous complexion?"

"No, you didn't," retorted Grace, "for the simple reason, that I haven't been to the doctor's for over two years."

"That's right, I guess it was your mother," Mollie admitted, wickedly helping herself to a delicious morsel.

"Goodness, my family's been prophesying that thing ever since I can remember," Grace retorted, putting aside her knitting, and drawing nearer to the candy box. "If I had listened to them I'd have worried myself into all sorts of things by this time."

"Instead you'd rather eat yourself into them," sighed Mollie primly, handing over the box with an air of resignation. "Betty, what was it you were saying?"

Betty chuckled.

"First of all, Grace is walking off with your wool," she said. "Look out, Grace, you'll break it."

"It was about Mrs. Barton Ross, wasn't it?" asked Amy patiently.

"Oh, yes! Well, she suggested that we give the same performance over again. Everybody liked it, and any number of people had spoken to her about it, saying they'd like to see it over again. Of course we'd have to leave out the booths and things; they would take too much time to get ready, but we might give the sketch."

"Goodness, that's a regular compliment," gurgled Mollie, knitting furiously. "Instead of—as Roy would say—'getting the hook,' they ask us to do it all over again. I wouldn't have thought any audience would stand for it."

"Well," continued Betty, "I told Mrs. Ross I'd talk it over with you folks, and if we did it at all, it would be for the benefit of the Y.W.C.A. Of course, we don't know how the boys will feel about it."

But the boys were perfectly willing to give the play again, declaring that "if Deepdale could stand for it, they surely could."

Deepdale did stand for it to the amount of a sum that made Mrs. Barton Ross open her eyes wide in delighted astonishment. The affair was a huge success.

"I don't know how to thank you," she had said to Betty and Grace, who had been appointed by the others to take the money to her. "You girls have waked Deepdale up with a vengeance. We were always intensely patriotic, but we hardly knew how to go about showing it, until you came and pointed the way."

Mrs. Barton Ross was the manager of the local Y.W.C.A., and every one in Deepdale both loved and respected her personally and as an influence for good.

"I believe," said Betty, as the two girls left her and started for home, "I'd like to join the Y.W.C.A. also if only to be near Mrs. Barton Ross. When I've talked with her for a little while, I always feel as if I'd been to church, or something like that."

And that was the way it came about. Not being satisfied with Red Cross work alone, the Outdoor Girls joined the Y.W.C.A., and from that time on their days were filled to overflowing.

"It's all very well to knit in the day time," Roy complained one stormy evening, when the four couples of young folks had congregated in Mollie's cheerful living-room; "but I don't see why you have to keep it up all evening too. It gets me dizzy just to watch the needles."

"Well, why don't you get busy and learn to knit yourselves?" asked Mollie with a twinkle. "Percy Falconer was telling me that in one place several men had gotten together, and formed a knitting club. Of course, they're too old to join the army or the navy, so they thought they'd do their bit that way."

"Yes, and they've even made up a knitting song," chuckled Betty. "And while they knit, they sing."

"The little dears," said Frank disgustedly. "Well, thank heaven, I'm not too old to fight."

"I imagine that's just the sort of club dear Percy would like to join," remarked Allen, smiling. "It's easier to imagine him in a corner by the fireside knitting socks for soldiers, than in any other role."

Percy Falconer was the dude of Deepdale, whom the other vigorous and hearty young folks pitied more than they despised.

"I wonder if he'll enlist," said Roy interestedly. "It's kind of hard to picture old Percy washing his own dishes."

"Enlist!" snorted Frank. "Of course he won't. He'll wait till he's drafted, and then pray every night that he'll be sick or something, so he won't have to go. I know his kind."

"Oh, there'll probably be a lot that will try to dodge the draft by dropping hammers on their toes, and cutting off their fingers and all such clever and noble little things as that," said Allen.

"Oh, Allen, do you think so?" asked Amy, gazing at him with horrified eyes over her knitting.

"Why, of course," Roy backed him up. "It won't happen so much among our boys. The slum districts will get most of it. Some of those suckers would do almost anything to get out of fighting."

"Goodness," said Betty, with a little shiver. "I should think it would take lots more courage to hurt yourself than to take a chance on getting shot in the trenches. I don't see how anybody can do it."

"Oh, they're doing worse things than that," said Allen with a chuckle. "Hundreds of the scared ones are getting married in the hope that they can get out of it that way."

"Jumping from the frying pan into the fire," grinned Roy.

"Or from one war to another," added Frank, while the girls made faces at them.

"But isn't Congress going to pass some sort of law," asked Betty earnestly—Allen reflected how very pretty she was when in earnest— "that will make that kind of man serve first? It seems to me I read something about it in the paper."

"Goodness, I don't even get time to read the paper any more," sighed Amy. "I feel wicked if I stop knitting for five minutes."

"We'll allow you that much," said Allen graciously. "Why, yes, there is a law like that pending, Betty, and I imagine there will be quite a few happy homes broken up."

"Did you hear about Herb Wilson?" asked Roy suddenly.

Herbert Wilson was another of the Deepdale boys.

"No," was the answer. "What's he been doing now?"

"Why, he was spending the week-end at a house party when his folks telegraphed him that his orders had come, and he was to report for duty the next morning. Well, the poor old chap didn't even have time to get home and say goodbye—had to rush off the next morning and was sent down South. His mother came over to see mine, and, the way she went on about it, you'd have thought Herb was going to be shot at sunrise!"

"Herb ought to answer like the old negro my uncle had on his plantation," remarked Allen with a smile. "'Marse,' he said, 'dar ain't no chaince o' my bein' shot at sunrise—no, sah. I don' never git up dat early.'"

They laughed, and Grace remarked casually:

"I admire that negro. He has my own idea exactly."

"You know, as far as I'm concerned I rather envy Herb," said Frank, while the girls stared at him in surprise. "Not for being called away without having time to say good-bye to his folks, of course, but for receiving his orders. Waiting and expecting them every day is mighty hard on your nerves, I can tell you."

"Gee, it's time we were moving, Grace," said Will, jumping up. He had been silent for the greater part of the evening. "It's getting late and you've done enough knitting for one day."

This was the signal for a general breaking up, and as the young folks rose to say good-bye they stole furtive glances at Will.

What was the matter with him? they wondered. Will, who had always been the life of a party before, and so intensely patriotic and thoroughly American! Yet he was the only one among them who was not shouldering his share of the nation's responsibility.

As Allen lingered after he and Betty had reached her home she spoke her wonderment and worry.

"Allen," she said, a little troubled line between her brows, "do you know what's the matter with Will? Is he, can he be—a slacker?"

"I don't know," said Allen, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he always did when anything was, as he expressed it, "too deep for him." "I can't make him out at all, Betty. We'll just have to hope for the best."

"That's all we can do," she answered, and gave a long-drawn sigh.



CHAPTER XII

HONOR FLAGS

"Yes, yes, this is Betty.—Oh, Allen!—When?—To-morrow morning! Oh, isn't that terribly short notice?—Oh, I can't, I can't believe it!— Roy and Frank, too?—No, I didn't hear about it—Listen, Allen.—No, I'm not crying.—What's that?—Well, I'm trying not to!—Please listen to me.—Bring the boys around here to-night, will you? I'll get the girls and we'll have a p-party.—No, I'm not crying.— G-good-bye!"

With a little jerk Betty hung up the receiver, and sat staring out of the window with the tears streaming down her cheeks. She brushed them away impatiently and felt feverishly for her pocket handkerchief.

"Oh, I h-hate the old Kaiser, and I hate the old war, and I h-hate everything!" she wailed, rolling the handkerchief up into a miserable little ball. "Wh-what will we do when the b-boys are gone and we haven't anything to do, but just think of the time they'll be sent over to France to get k-killed? Oh, Betty, don't act so f-foolish," she scolded, putting away the handkerchief with an air of decision. "You know you wouldn't have had them do anything else anyway——

"Oh, there's that old telephone again.

"Yes, hello, Mollie.—Isn't it terrible?—Oh, do come around—and stay for supper.—I—can't bear to be left alone.—Good-bye."

"Well, what are we going to do?"

The four girls had gathered once more on Betty's porch and were regarding each other mournfully.

"Do?" echoed Grace. "Why, we can't do anything, of course, but let them go."

"But it won't seem at all like Deepdale!" mourned Amy.

"Well, the only thing I can see that we can do," sighed Mollie, "is to become Red Cross nurses and go across with them."

"That probably wouldn't do any good, either," objected Betty, "as far as being with the boys is concerned, because we'd probably be sent to another part of the field entirely, and probably wouldn't see them from the beginning of the war to the end of it. No, I guess we'll just have to keep on knitting for them."

"They're going to write to us, anyway," said Mollie. "And we must write to them a good deal, too. They say the boys are just crazy for letters when they're away from home."

"Yes, and sometimes girls and women correspond with boys they never saw and never expect to see," added Amy, "just because they haven't any relatives, and it makes it less lonesome for them."

"I imagine we'll have all we want to do just to keep up our correspondence with the boys we know," said Betty, knitting steadily. "I think it's wonderful the way practically all of Deepdale has volunteered. It makes you proud to live here."

"Yes, and they all seem to be leaving about the same time, too," said Mollie. "Service flags are springing up all over town."

"It's terrible," said Amy, with another sigh. "I can't walk along the street and see those flags in the houses of people we've grown up with, without having a funny lump rise in my throat, and I have to hurry past to keep myself from acting foolishly."

"I guess none of us really knew we were at war until all the boys we know began to be called away," said Grace seriously. "And I know you girls must all think it's strange—" she paused for a moment as if uncertain just how to proceed, and the girls looked at her in surprise.

"I—I'm so worried about Will," Grace continued, not raising her eyes from her knitting. "He hasn't been himself for a month—you girls must have noticed that—and he won't give me any satisfaction at all when I ask him what's the matter. We—he and I—used to be such good friends——" her voice broke and the girls' hearts ached for her, "and now he acts just like a stranger—only asks to be left alone. And he's so moody and queer and silent——" Her voice trailed off and for a long time no one spoke.

The girls were troubled, and they longed to give her sympathy. It was hard to know just what to say, for Will had puzzled them all sorely.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Gracie, dear," said Betty, at last, going over and sitting down beside her friend. "Will has some problem that he's trying to work out all by himself. We know that he's true blue all the way through, and when he's ready to confide in us, he'll do it. Until then, we've just got to trust him, that's all, and help him all we can by our good faith."

Grace's head had dropped on Betty's shoulder and she was crying softly.

"B-Betty, you're such a comfort," she murmured as Betty gently stroked her hair. "That was j-just what I w-wanted you to say. I've been so m-miserable."

That was more than the girls could stand, for they remembered how gallantly Grace had striven to hide her trouble during all these weeks, and they gathered around her, whispering little words of endearment and comfort, till she started to laugh and cry together, calling herself an "old goose" and clinging to them desperately.

It was some time before they grew calm and could speak coherently. Then Amy sighed and said:

"Oh, dear, it's a quarter past six and I promised to be home by six sharp. Now what shall I do?"

"Telephone your brother that you're staying here," said the Little Captain decidedly. "The boys are coming to-night, you know, and you can all help me with the spread. No, you needn't waste time arguing— you're going to stay."

And when Betty spoke in that tone, no one dared dispute with her.

It was half past eight before the boys came, and the girls were getting so nervous and impatient they could hardly sit still.

"Do you suppose they could have forgotten?" Amy was beginning, when the sound of masculine voices in excited conversation floated to them on the breeze, and she stopped short to listen.

"They're coming," cried Mollie. "There's no mistaking Frank's raucous tones, or Roy's either, for that matter. What do you suppose they're so excited about?"

A few moments later the boys themselves ran up the steps, greeted the girls cheerily, and ranged themselves in various attitudes upon the railing of the porch.

"Say, did you hear the latest news?" asked Roy eagerly, before the greetings were half over. "Another American ship has been sunk by those beastly Huns, and quite a number of passengers are reported missing. Gee, I wish instead of going to a training camp we were going right across. It seems a crime to be wasting time on this side when we might be getting at them."

"Another ship!" cried Betty, while the boys eagerly poured forth the details. "Oh, if I were only a man," she added, clenching her hands as the recital finished, "I'd fight until there wasn't one German left on the face of the earth."

"You just leave that to us," said Frank, his eyes gleaming. "We may not be able to exterminate the whole German nation, but we'll drag the old Kaiser to his knees and make him kiss the Stars and Stripes before we get through. Gee, but I'm aching to get right into the thick of it all!"

"What's this?" asked Betty, as Allen handed her several sheets of paper, rolled together and fastened with a rubber band.

"Music," explained Allen, who had not taken his eyes from her face since he had come upon the porch. "A reporter I know handed them to me. They're all the popular war songs, and I thought perhaps we might run them over tonight."

They went into the living-room, where Betty's treasured grand piano was. Betty played and the others sang until they came to "Keep the Home Fires Burning," when Allen interfered.

"If nobody minds," he said seriously, "I'd like to hear Betty sing that—alone."

And Betty, who knew the song and had always liked it, started to sing. But she did not get far. Something swelled and swelled in her throat and every time she came to the lines:

"Though our lads are far away They think of home—"

tears blinded her eyes, her voice quivered, and she had to stop.

Three times she tried it, then with a little sob, dropped her head on her arm and sat still. The girls ran to her, while the boys turned away to hide their own emotion.

"Never mind, Betty dear," whispered Mollie, wiping a tear from the end of her nose and patting Betty's hand tenderly. "We—we all feel the same way about it."

Betty raised her head and smiled a little April smile upon them.

"I'll always keep the home fires b-burning," she said unsteadily, "but I c-can't sing about it."



CHAPTER XIII

"SMILE, GIRLS, SMILE"

"Wake up, Gracie." Betty's voice was low and excited as she shook her friend into semi-wakefulness. "The boys have to catch the early train, you know, and we mustn't keep them waiting."

"Yes, I know," said Grace, waking to full consciousness without a protest—for the first time since Betty had known her. "What time is it, Betty?"

"Six-thirty," answered Betty, beginning to dress hurriedly. "That's fifteen minutes later than we should be. Oh, if we should miss seeing them off!"

"Betty, I don't feel like myself at all," said Grace, after a silence during which they had both been plunged in thought. She flourished a shoe in the air and regarded Betty as though it were her fault. "I feel all quivery and shaky and trembly inside, and I don't think I could smile if you paid me for it."

"Goodness, I know I couldn't!" said Betty, and then added as she pinned on the bunch of carnations Allen had brought her the night before: "We've just got to smile, though, whether we feel like it or not. We don't want the boys to remember us in tears."

"I should say not!" responded Grace emphatically. "When I cry I'm a perfect fright. That's why I never do it."

Betty chuckled despite the dull ache at her heart.

"I wasn't quite thinking of that," she said. "But it surely will be better if we're able to smile a little bit. Come on—let's practice."

They stood together before the mirror, doing their best to smile naturally, and their very failure to do it made them laugh at themselves.

"If we're not a couple of geese," said Betty, as arms intertwined, they descended the stairs. "That's about the first time we ever had to try to smile. Now for a bite of breakfast."

But, try though they did, they could not eat, and finally had to give it up entirely.

"We were all to meet at Mollie's, weren't we?" asked Grace, as they made their way down the sun-flooded street. "Oh, Betty, I'm afraid to meet anybody, I'm so sure I'm going to make a goose of myself. Will you hold my hand all the time?"

"Of course," said Betty, laughing unsteadily. "It's always hard to say good-bye to anybody you—you—like," she added, "but when they're going away to war and you may never see them again——"

"Please don't," begged Grace, squeezing her hand convulsively. "If you talk like that I just can't stand it, that's all. It wouldn't take very much——"

"All right, I won't do it again," cried Betty with forced gaiety. "Isn't that Mollie waving to us? Of course it is. Come on, Grace, I'll run you a race."

But Grace was in no mind to run a race, and Betty reached the meeting place alone, with Grace trailing in the rear.

"Have any of the boys reached here yet?" asked Betty as she ran up the steps. "I was afraid we'd be late."

"No, they haven't come," said Mollie, looking anxiously down the street; "and I'm so afraid they'll be late and miss the train, I don't know what to do. Do you suppose they could have forgotten?"

"Mollie Billette," cried Betty, looking at her wonderingly, "what on earth——"

"Oh, I know I'm impossibly silly," cried Mollie, dropping into a chair and rocking nervously; "but I just don't know what I'm saying this morning. I feel as if somebody was dead."

"Not yet—but soon," boomed a deep voice behind them that made them jump a foot.

"Roy Anderson!" cried Mollie, her French temper flaring forth. "That's a nice thing to do—come up behind us and scare us all to death. And it's not nice to joke about such a serious thing, either."

"Gee, it won't do any good to cry about it," retorted Roy philosophically, looking around upon the three pretty girls with an appreciative eye. "I call it a great lark, and if only you girls were coming along my happiness would be complete."

"Where are the other boys?" broke in Betty. "I thought you were all coming together."

"I called for both of them," Roy answered, grinning, "but it seems they'd overslept themselves, and they said they'd be along later."

"Well, if it's very much later," said Grace grimly, "they might as well go back to bed again. That train isn't going to wait."

"Oh, they'll be here all right," Roy assured her confidently. "They're not going to be left behind when there's any adventure like this afoot."

"Here they come now," cried Betty, running to the edge of the porch and waving frantically. "Amy's with them, too. Must have picked her up on the way."

"We'll save time if we go on down to meet them," Roy suggested, taking Grace by the arm. "Come along, girls, we really haven't any time to waste."

Betty and Mollie needed no such invitation. They were down the steps and flying along the street before Grace had risen from her chair.

"Oh, we were so afraid you'd be late," gasped Betty, as Allen caught her on the wing, as it were, and drew her to his side. "And if you weren't there on time, you might be tried for desertion, mightn't you?" she added, looking so adorable in her concern that Allen failed to reassure her right away.

"Well, I don't know that we have to be there just on the minute," he answered, smiling down at her. "But I may be really tried for desertion some day. I can't stay away from you very long, Betty."

She flushed and turned her eyes away.

"I wouldn't get you into any trouble for the world," she said demurely.

"Will you write every day?" pleaded Allen, leaning close, and for the moment these two were absolutely alone. "Letters are the next best thing to having you with me, Betty. And if you stop writing, I give you fair warning I'll come straight home on the next train, furlough or no furlough, to see what the matter is; and if I get shot at sunrise, so much the better. Betty, will you promise me?" He said it pleadingly.

"I—I'll try to write every day," she answered, still not daring to look at him; "but you mustn't mind if some days it's only a little line. I'm going to be terribly busy."

"I expect to be busy, too," said Allen, drawing himself up a little; "but I'd manage to find time to write to you every day if I had to let other things go."

"Allen," she laid a hand on his arm and he covered it eagerly with his own, "I will write to you every day and it will be a good long one, too."

"Not from a sense of duty?" he asked, still a little unbelieving, though his heart was throbbing painfully. "You won't write just because you'll think I'll be expecting it, Betty?"

"No," she said, her voice very low, so low that he had to bend close to catch the words. "I'll write to you, Allen—because I—can't help myself."

"Betty," he cried, "look at me."

"Th-there's the engine whistle," she said unsteadily.

"Engine whistle be hanged!" cried Allen explosively. "Betty, I want you to look at me."

Then, as she still turned from him, he deliberately put a hand beneath her chin and turned her face to meet his.

"Betty, little Betty," he cried tenderly, seeing that her eyes were wet with tears, "do you care as much as that? Little girl——"

"D-don't be nice to me," she sobbed, feeling for her handkerchief. "I don't want to c-cry. I want to send you away with a s-smile——"

"Betty," he cried, crushing her to him for a minute, as the train thundered into the station, "I love you, I love you—do you hear that? Goodbye, little girl—little girl——"

The boys tore themselves away, not daring to look back until they reached the train. And the girls stood in a pathetically brave little group, waving to them and smiling through their tears.



CHAPTER XIV

THE SPY AGAIN

They watched until the train was only a dot in the far distance, then turned disconsolately away.

"Well, they're gone," said Amy, when they had walked three whole blocks in silence.

"Goodness, why don't you tell us something we don't know?" snapped Mollie. "Please forgive me, Amy," she added the next moment, as Amy's eyes filled with tears. "I know I'm a beast, but I can't seem to help it this morning."

"Only this morning?" asked Grace maliciously, and Mollie made a face at her—which went far toward making them feel more normal.

"Didn't the boys say Camp Liberty was only a couple of hundred miles from here?" asked Betty thoughtfully. Camp Liberty was the cantonment in which the boys were to receive their initial military training.

"Yes," said Mollie, glancing at her friend sharply. "Now what plan have you got up your sleeve, Betty Nelson? I never in my life saw a girl so full of plans."

"Goodness, this isn't a plan," said Betty, though her eyes brightened eagerly. "It's just a wild idea, that's all. You've all heard of the Hostess Houses they're establishing at the different camps?"

"Yes," they answered, impatient for what was to come.

"Well, Mrs. Barton Ross said that there was a Y.M.C.A. hut at Camp Liberty," Betty's face flushed with the daring of this new plan, "but that there was no Hostess House there, yet."

"Well?" they queried, not quite catching her meaning.

"Of course it's probably absurd," said the Little Captain half apologetically, "but I thought—I thought—"

"Oh, Betty, for goodness sake, what did you think?" cried Mollie, unable longer to bear the suspense.

"That—that we might work in it," finished Betty, rather expecting to be laughed at.

"Betty!" gasped Grace, standing stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk and gazing at Betty open-mouthed. "Do you suppose there's a chance that we could?"

"Betty Nelson, you're a wonder!" cried Mollie, throwing her arm about the Little Captain in a bear's hug. "I'd never have thought of that in a thousand years."

"Well, I don't know but what it was mighty foolish to think of it," said Betty ruefully. "It would be mighty hard to get our hopes all raised for nothing."

"Let's go around and see Mrs. Ross this morning," Amy suggested, adding with sublime confidence: "She'll fix it so we can go."

"I only wish I felt as sure," said Betty, still thinking how foolish she had been not to speak to Mrs. Ross about it herself before she had proposed it to the girls. Now she had got them all excited—and it was such a wild idea.

"Oh, Betty, don't be a wet blanket," said Mollie impatiently. "I'd rather have my hopes raised just to be disappointed than never to have any hopes at all."

"It would be lots of fun," Grace went on, her eyes shining at the mere thought. "We've heard so much about these Hostess Houses that I've just been crazy to see one. But to live right there at the camp——"

"We could help to see that the friends and mothers and sweethearts of the boys were made comfortable," cried Mollie enthusiastically. "And if there were too many to be entertained at the Hostess House we could get families outside to entertain them. Oh, it would be no end of fun."

"Oh, I wish I hadn't said anything," wailed the poor Little Captain. "Now if we are disappointed, as we almost certainly shall be, it will be all my fault."

"I don't know why it would be your fault," said Grace, slipping a loyal arm about her friend. "You've chased the gloom away for one morning at least, and if nothing comes of this idea, we'll at least have had the delights of anticipation."

"There's Mrs. Ross now," cried Mollie suddenly, as a figure emerged from one of the cross streets and started on ahead of them. "Let's run after her and learn our fate right away."

And they did run, with the result that a moment later Mrs. Barton Ross was surrounded by four very much excited, gesticulating and pretty girls, all talking at once and all clamoring for her attention.

She watched them a moment, admiring their flushed cheeks and bright eyes, then laughingly held up her hand.

"One at a time," she begged. "I can play a different air with each hand on the piano, but I'm not gifted enough to understand four people all talking at once. Now, if you'll just say it all over again."

"Betty, you tell her," begged Amy, and so, eagerly, Betty put her request.

"I know it's probably very foolish," she finished, anxiously watching Mrs. Ross' kindly, interested face. "But we thought, just perhaps, it might be possible."

"There's no 'just perhaps' about it," said Mrs. Ross decidedly, and the girls wondered if they could believe the evidence of their ears. "In fact," she continued, "I was going to speak to you girls about that very thing this morning. You have been so successful in rousing the general spirit here, that I thought you would be just the ones to make a Hostess House at Camp Liberty a success. Why, yes, I think it can very easily be arranged."

Then the girls forgot dignity and decorum and everything else and just celebrated. In the exuberance of their joy they hugged Mrs. Ross until she gasped for breath, then they danced off down the street on feet that scarcely touched the ground.

"Oh, it's too good to be true," cried Mollie, when at last their excitement had quieted down a little; then, gleefully, "Won't the boys be surprised?"

"Let's not tell them," Grace suggested. "It would be fun not to let them know a thing about it till we actually got there. I want to see their faces."

"Who's that?" cried Mollie, grasping Betty's arm as a man sauntered out from a cross street, glanced at them, then quickly dodged back behind a house. "It looked like——"

"It was!" finished Betty, running swiftly in the direction the man had taken.

"The spy!" gasped Amy, who with Grace, as usual, brought up the rear. "Oh, Betty, be careful! You don't want to get shot!"

Mollie and Betty, panting, just reached the end of the street in time to see the man disappearing down another and knew that pursuit was useless.

"Oh, dear!" cried Mollie, ready to cry with vexation. "If we were only half a dozen men apiece, and could have gotten our hands on him!"

"Yes, I wouldn't very much mind getting my pearl lavallire back," said Grace, as she and Amy joined them.

"And my gold watch," mourned Mollie.

"Look, girls, he dropped something," cried Betty, who had gone on a few steps in advance of them. "And it's—why, I do believe it's——"

"My opal ring!" cried Mollie, staring at it unbelievingly. "Oh, I can't believe it. Give it to me, Betty; it has my initials on the inside. Yes, that's my ring."

The ring passed from one to the other, and the girls regarded it thoughtfully.

"Which proves beyond the shadow of a doubt," said Betty at last, "that Adolph Hensler was the thief."

"Oh, if we could only have stopped him!" mourned Amy, for perhaps the eleventh time. "It's terrible to be so close and then lose sight of him again."

"If it weren't for getting back our stolen things," said Grace with a little shiver, "I'd be only too glad not to lay eyes on his beauteous countenance again. Goodness, I know I'll dream of him to-night."

They walked on after that for some time in silence, each one busy with her own absorbing thoughts. Then suddenly Betty spoke.

"Do you know, girls," she said, "I may be foolish—probably I am, but I have a strong conviction that some time we're going to meet that spy again—and the third time he isn't going to get away from us!"



CHAPTER XV

MORE SURPRISES

The next few weeks were filled with such excitement, that the girls even forgot to miss the boys. In the letters they received from the latter—and they were many—they never failed to find comments upon this strange fact. The boys seemed to feel a little aggrieved that the girls did not weep a few more tears in the absence of their devoted swains.

"Of course I want you to be happy, Betty," Allen had written once upon this theme, "but I'd like to feel that you missed me, a little anyway. It makes a fellow feel as though it wouldn't make any difference if he disappeared off the face of the earth. If you missed me one-tenth as much as I miss you—" etc., etc., until Betty's laugh bubbled over and she patted the letter consolingly.

"Never mind, Allen, dear," she said, putting the letter away carefully in the rapidly increasing pile, tied with the blue ribbon. "If you only knew what I know, you wouldn't have time to miss me so much either. But I am glad," she added, all to herself, flushed of face and shy-eyed, "oh, so very glad, Allen, to have you miss me!"

So the days went on, drawing rapidly nearer to the date of their departure, while the excitement and good spirits of the girls rose proportionately.

About a week before the great day, they gave another of the affairs which had grown so rapidly in popularity. This time it was to raise funds for the Hostess House, and the girls gave heart and soul and all their time to make it a success.

They were to have some very elaborate tableaux with dancing afterward, and all Deepdale was on tiptoe with anticipation long before the night arrived. And how they all enjoyed it!

It spoke well for the patriotism of the young men of Deepdale that there were very few within the age of enlistment, who had not already gone to the various training camps, scattered all over the country. So there were very few at the dance, giving, as Betty's father jokingly said, a chance for the "young old men" to show their accomplishments.

And the "young old men," did so well that there had never, in all the history of Deepdale, been a merrier party. Being an age when everybody danced, up to the grandfathers of ninety, the girls had no lack of partners, and were oftentimes amazed at the skill and dexterity and lightness shown by men who were old enough to be their fathers twice over.

Of course some of them were stiff and a little "creaky in the joints," but this only added to the general hilarity, and at one o'clock the fun was still fast and furious.

"Oh, I never had such a good time," cried Mollie, sinking down beside Betty on one of the roughly improvised benches, weak from laughing. "I was just dancing with old Doctor Riley, and he kept me in stitches. Half the time he had almost to carry me around, I was laughing so."

Betty nodded and dimpled bewitchingly as Mr. Bailey, father of ten children, gallantly asked for the next dance.

"You're taking a chance, Miss Betty," he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling into a million wrinkles as he laughed down at her. "I used to be considered a fairly good dancer in the old days, but I haven't danced in the last ten years. I watched the young folks so much, though, I thought I'd take a chance if you were willing. If I step on your toes too much we can go over and get some ice cream and cake."

"You're doing wonderfully," said Betty heartily, amazed to find how much she was really enjoying the dance. "I'm going to write to the boys, and say we don't need them any more," she added whimsically. "I'll tell them we're just beginning to appreciate their fathers!"

When it was over, their proceeds amounted to over a hundred dollars; and that was not counting an uproarious good time, that none of the young or middle-aged folk of Deepdale would ever stop talking about.

Then at last came the dawning of the great day—the day the girls had looked forward to for weeks. They woke with a strange, thrilly sensation running up and down their spines, and hearts that refused to beat normally.

In four separate houses, four separate girls dressed with trembling fingers and eyes on the clock; and four separate girls kept saying over and over again: "What will they say? What will they say?"

They met at Mollie's as usual—a tense-faced, excited little group— with parents and relatives who were going to the train to see them off.

"Have we plenty of time?" asked Amy, who for two days and nights had lived in the fear of losing that train. "I guess maybe we'd better hurry."

"Oh, there is oceans of time," Mrs. Ross assured them, who seemed, for some unaccountable reason, bent on delaying them. "The train isn't due for ten minutes yet, and then it's more than likely to be late. Besides, there are a few last words I'd like to say to you girls that can be said better here than on the station platform."

Then she started to give them some minute instructions, to which they tried hard to listen respectfully, although the mere effort to sit still was torture, and Mollie afterward said she "wanted to scream."

However, the harangue lasted at the most, two minutes—although it seemed to the girls two ages—and they were at last on their way to the station. It was not till they turned the corner that brought the familiar platform in view, that they received their first surprise.

The station was fairly thronged with people!

"Wh-what is it?" stammered Betty, rubbing her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming.

"Is everybody in Deepdale going away?" added Mollie, her eyes big with wonder.

"I've never seen so many people at the station at one time," added Grace, bewildered.

"Do you know what it is, Mrs. Ross?" asked Amy.

But Mrs. Ross made no answer—she did not have to. The crowd at the station caught sight of the four girls, and a great shout went up.

"Hurray," cried a masculine voice. "Hurray for the Outdoor Girls. Give 'em three cheers and a tiger."

The girls stood still, amazed, bewildered, until suddenly, out of a maze of tangled thoughts, light dawned.

"They're cheering us, Mollie," whispered Betty, squeezing Mollie's hand until it hurt—at least it would have if Mollie had noticed it. "All these people have turned out early just to see us off."

"I—I'm afraid I'm going to cry," said Mollie unsteadily.

When the shouts had died down, Doctor Riley made a speech full of true Irish wit and humor, and pathos, too, telling the girls how deeply Deepdale had appreciated the active and patriotic work they had done for their country in the time of its bitterest need and how very sorry they all were to see them go.

He went on to tell something of what the country was doing and had done, cracking a few jokes based on camp life, that almost sent the girls into hysterics—so finely balanced were they between laughter and tears. Then he ended with another eulogy of the Outdoor Girls and the hope that health and good fortune would follow them wherever they went.

He stepped down from the box on which he had been making his address just as the sharp toot of the whistle gave warning of the train's approach. Some one handed him four little corsage bouquets of carnations, which he handed in turn to each one of the tremulous girls, with an appropriate little speech to each.

With a grinding of brakes the train came to a standstill, and the crowd gave way to let them pass. Clutching the little bouquets tight and hoping desperately that they would not cry, the girls started for the train.

At the bottom of the steps Betty turned and faced them.

"You dear people," she began, but choked and had to try again. "I— we—want to thank you——" Then, as two tears forced their way through and rolled unchecked down her face, she turned and ran up the car steps.

"All we can say," she added, smiling unsteadily down at them as the train began to move, "is, just that we—we—love you all!"



CHAPTER XVI

THE HOSTESS HOUSE

Once settled comfortably in the seats, the girls smiled across at each other unsteadily.

"We didn't deserve it," said Amy, brushing away a tiresome tear that would insist upon trickling down her face.

"None of us did, except Betty," said Grace, recovering enough to open the chocolate box she had thoughtfully purchased at a drug store. "She was the one who really thought up all the things, and all we did was follow where she led."

"That's foolish, and you know it is," said Betty, beginning to get indignant. "I'd like to know how much of it I could have done without you girls! And of course the boys helped wonderfully, too."

"Goodness, what's the use of arguing?" Mollie broke in. "The fact remains that we've been cheered by a crowd of our friends, made speeches to, and presented with bouquets, and I don't care whose fault it was it all happened. I'm too happy."

"Happy," echoed Amy, gazing dreamily out of the window at the flying landscape. "I never was so happy in my life before—except for one thing." Her face clouded a little and she bit her lip.

"What one thing?" asked Mollie with interest. Grace and Betty turned to gaze at her inquiringly.

"Oh, n—nothing," stammered Amy, very much confused to find all eyes upon her. "I was just—thinking aloud, I guess."

"Well, do it some more," suggested Grace, passing her the candy. "Something tells me it might be interesting."

"Goodness, it is interesting," laughed Betty, changing the subject to save Amy further embarrassment. "Have any of you girls ever heard Grace talk in her sleep?"

"Now, Betty," Grace turned upon her reproachfully. "You're never going to—"

"Yes, she is," cried Mollie gleefully. "What does she say, Betty? It ought to be good."

"I never say anything that isn't good," put in Grace primly, adding, as she saw the light of mischief in Betty's eye. "If you tell tales out of school, Betty Nelson, I'll never forgive you."

"It's awfully funny," began Betty, bubbling over, while Mollie leaned forward gleefully. "She talks in such a wee small voice, and sometimes she'll even answer questions—if you speak very coaxingly."

"I know, but what does she say?" asked Mollie impatiently. "Goodness, I've missed a lot."

"Well, I remember one conversation we had," began Betty reflectively.

"Betty," Grace broke in imploringly, "I had a mistaken notion that you were a friend of mine."

"I am, dear," answered Betty soothingly. "I won't give away any secrets—not many, anyway——"

"Betty," cried Grace desperately, "I'll stop you if I have to use force."

"We'll protect you, Betty," Mollie promised. "Go ahead, tell us about that conversation."

"It was very interesting," complied Betty, with exasperating deliberation, and eyes brimming over with fun. "It seems to me we were discussing some of the boys we knew——"

"Betty," cried poor Grace again, her face flaming, "if you say one word more, I'll never speak to you again."

"Well, in that case," said Betty, settling back and looking disappointed, "I suppose I'll have to let you out."

"That's a nice way to treat us, I should say," cried Mollie disgustedly. "Just get our curiosity aroused and then sit on it. No, you needn't try to make it up by offering me candy, Betty. I'm just peeved."

"Goodness, I seem to make enemies whatever I do," said Betty plaintively. "I tell you what I'll do," she added, seized by inspiration.

"Take care," warned Grace, her mouth full of chocolate.

"We'll wait till some night when Grace has eaten a specially large amount of chocolates and ice cream——"

"We won't have to wait long," murmured Mollie.

"And then I'll invite you all to a seance," finished Betty, sitting back and looking tremendously satisfied with herself. "Then you can question Grace for yourselves."

"But does she actually answer you?" asked Amy, still incredulous. "I've heard of people talking in their sleep, but I never heard of anybody's answering questions intelligently."

"Goodness, she doesn't!" said Betty wickedly. "How can you expect people to do in their sleep what they can't do when they're awake?"

"Betty Nelson!" cried Grace—and if looks could kill, Betty's moments would have been numbered—"that's the worst yet. Now I am offended."

"Oh, dear," said Betty, while the others giggled merrily. "I always seem to be getting myself in wrong. Will you pass me some candy, Grace?"

"No," said the latter firmly. "I only give candies to them what deserves 'em. Mollie, come back with those—come back with them—I tell you—"

But Mollie had whisked them off Grace's lap before she could interfere and had handed them around with great ceremony.

And so the journey continued amid a great deal of fun and merriment until the train was nearing Camp Liberty. Then the prospect of seeing the boys and surprising them made the girls so nervous they could hardly sit still.

"I did such a foolish thing," said Betty, as they, put on their wraps in a flurry of haste. "I wrote to Allen yesterday and I'll see him before he gets the letter. It would have been better to have brought it along."

A few minutes later the train drew into the station, and a quartette of very pretty girls stepped to the platform. So pretty were they, in fact, that more than one passerby turned around to look a second time.

The girls gave their trunk checks to a negro who came bustling up, stepped into a cab and, almost before they knew it, were being whirled along the streets at a reckless pace toward the Hostess House.

"Oh," gasped Amy, holding on tight to the seat. "I have worse stage fright now than I did on the night we gave the sketch. Everything's so new and strange."

"Well, what did you expect a strange city to be like?" asked Mollie practically.

In what seemed to them scarcely a second of time they had stopped before a very pretty, homelike house, and a polite chauffeur was holding the door of the cab open for them.

Still feeling as if it were all happening in a dream, they crossed the sidewalk and ran up the steps of the house. Before they had time to ring the bell a stout, middle-aged, motherly-looking woman opened the door and smiled down at them approvingly.

"Well, well," she said, holding the door wide for them, "walk right in, young ladies, and make yourselves at home."

"We expected you almost an hour sooner," she added, as the girls followed her into a big, cheerful front room. "I was rather afraid there might have been an accident on the road—there have been several lately."

"No, we were simply delayed," replied Betty with her prettiest smile— winning the woman's affections then and there. "Part of the way we could have walked faster than the train moved, I think."

"I'm Mrs. Watson," their hostess introduced herself a few minutes later, as she led the way upstairs. "Mrs. Barton Ross has no doubt told you I am representing the Y.W.C.A. here in Denton. I hope," she added, as the girls took off their coats and hats and "did things" to their hair, "that we are going to be friends."

"We shall be," chorused the girls, smiling at her happily, "if we have anything to say about it!"



CHAPTER XVII

HELPING UNCLE SAM

After dinner, the girls were taken over their new domain, and were enthusiastic about it. There were three big parlors where the boys could entertain their friends and relatives, also bedrooms enough to accommodate some score of people over night.

"Of course, as you see, we're not nearly in shape yet," Mrs. Watson apologized, as they came back to the big front room. "There are still pictures to be hung, some draperies and odds and ends to be bought that will change the looks of the place entirely. It is with those things you girls can help me immensely, if you will."

"That's what we came for," replied Betty quickly, while the other girls looked eager. "And besides, I think it will be a lark. Somehow, nothing seems half hard or strenuous enough to do for the boys that are giving up so much for us."

"That's the spirit we like to see," said Mrs. Watson, looking at the girl's flushed face and shining eyes approvingly. "And it's the spirit," she added slowly, "that we see among nine-tenths of our girls and women these days. It's wonderful what we are accomplishing."

"It's nothing to what our boys are going to accomplish when they get into the fight," broke in Mollie, her eyes big and dark. "My one regret is that I can't put on a uniform, and fight side by side with them."

"But we can fight side by side with them," said Mrs. Watson, leaning forward very seriously. "Don't you suppose the thought of us and the certainty that we are backing them up with all our might, will be with the boys every minute while they're in the trenches, helping them to fight the Hun as they never would be able to alone?"

"Yes," said Mollie, impressed but still unconvinced. "But I should think it would help them ever so much more if we were really there in person. Women have proved themselves just as good fighters as men, you know."

"That might be all right," said Amy quietly. "But then who would stay at home to knit sweaters for them, and who would do the nursing work? We couldn't do that, and be in the trenches at the same time."

"That's the way I look at it," said Mrs. Watson, turning to the quiet girl and regarding her thoughtfully. "It seems to me we are doing far more good here at home where we've had experience, than we could possibly do in the actual fighting. But it's getting pretty late," she interrupted herself, "and you girls must be tired after your long journey. Suppose we get to bed right away, so that in the morning we can start bright and early to get things in shape."

They assented unanimously, for, although their desire for information was as unsatisfied as ever, their eyelids were heavy with sleep, and the thought of bed lured them irresistibly.

"Oh, I can't wait for the morning to come," sighed Betty, as she slipped in between the cool sheets. "It seems wicked to waste time in sleep."

"In the morning we'll work," said Mollie, her voice eager with anticipation; "and in the afternoon—"

"We'll go over and surprise the boys," finished Grace. "I can almost see their faces when we burst in upon them."

"There'll be no bursting," said Betty primly. "We've got to behave like perfectly proper young ladies."

"Oh, impossible," murmured Mollie; and five minutes later, they were all asleep.

Morning, and the sun shining brightly in the window, challenging them to action.

"Awake?" queried Mollie, leaning over and poking Betty experimentally.

"If I'm not I soon will be," said Betty, sitting up and regarding Mollie indignantly. "Goodness, that's a nice thing to do to a person. Couldn't you see I was asleep?"

"I was just asking you," said Mollie twinkling. "You looked so sweet and peaceful——"

"That you needs must spoil it all," said Betty plaintively. "My, but I'd hate to have that kind of a disposition."'

"Won't you let me be your little alarm clock?" begged Mollie, leaning forward to administer another poke, which Betty skillfully dodged.

"No, I won't," she answered, adding, as she squinted out at the sun: "We don't need one in this room. We're facing directly east."

Mollie chuckled.

"Mrs. Watson made a mistake," she said, "when she put Grace and Amy in the other room. She should have put them in this one, so the sun could take our place and wake them up every morning. Betty, it's a glorious day."

"Don't you suppose I know it?" asked Betty, shaking herself impatiently, as the tang of the air and the brilliant sunshine got into her blood, making her eager for action. "And it's only six o'clock," she added, appealing to her little wrist watch. "We'll never be able to get Grace and Amy up this early."

"Won't you, though?" chuckled a voice from the doorway, and they looked up quickly to find Grace standing there, with Amy laughing at them over her shoulder. And what was still more wonderful and startling—they were dressed!

Betty and Mollie stared unbelievingly for a moment, mouths and eyes wide open, then jumped out of bed and made a rush for the conspirators.

"I don't see how you did it," gasped Mollie a few minutes later, when they stopped for lack of breath. "There wasn't a sound——"

"Yes, there were, lots of them," said Grace, stopping before a mirror to tuck in a stray lock that had come loose in the general confusion. "Only you and Betty were talking so hard and fast, you didn't hear us. Goodness, but I'm hungry."

As this was the case with them all, and as the savory odor of bacon and eggs was wafted up to them at the moment from below stairs, they wasted scant time in making their way to it.

And after breakfast what a busy morning they spent! Never in all their active lives could they remember anything to equal it. Downtown first of all to shop under Mrs. Watson's guidance, in stores that were so different from those in Deepdale, that they were in great danger of becoming hopelessly confused.

However, they eventually "got their bearings," as the boys would have said, and came home at last laden with parcels, and very much satisfied with themselves.

After luncheon, which was extremely well-cooked and tasted, oh, so good! Mrs. Watson proposed the one thing they wanted most to do.

"Suppose," she suggested, as they rose from the table, "that we call this a day and spend the afternoon in getting acquainted with the cantonment. It's extremely interesting, especially for those who have never been through one before. What do you say?"

What they said was enough to convince her she could not have struck upon a happier plan. Half an hour later, all talking at once and tremendously excited, they set out upon their tour of inspection.

Betty drew Grace a little apart from the others and they held a whispered consultation.

"What shall we do?" asked the former nervously. "Shall we send the orderly to hunt up the boys and bring them to us, or shall we just wait until we meet them by chance?"

"We might be here a week without doing that," said Grace, looking about at the scores of olive drab figures. "And in the meantime, they'd think it was very strange we didn't write to them."

"I suppose you're right," said Betty reluctantly, "but the other way would be so much more fun."

At this moment Mrs. Watson and the two other girls beckoned to them to hurry, and they had no chance for further conversation.

Then, just as Betty was about to broach the subject of the boys to Mrs. Watson, the unexpected happened.

A khaki-clad figure, cutting across their path at a dead run, almost collided with them, paused to gasp an apology, stopped still and stared. It was Allen!

"Betty!" he cried, with eyes for only one of them. "Wh—what are you doing here?"

"Just what you're doing," said Betty with spirit, though she was blushing furiously. "Helping Uncle Sam!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE EVENING GUN

"But wh-what?" stammered Allen, while Mrs. Watson looked on in amazement. "Wh-why didn't you let a fellow know?"

"We wanted to surprise you," said Betty gleefully, noting with pride how splendid he looked in his uniform. "You don't seem at all glad to see us. Mrs. Watson," remembering her manners in the nick of time, "this is a friend of ours from Deepdale—Allen Washburn. He didn't know we were coming."

"So I see," smiled Mrs. Watson, shaking hands warmly with Allen. "I'm very glad to know you, Mr. Washburn, and I hope we shall see you often at the Hostess House."

"It's very good of you," said Allen, still very much in the dark, and totally unable to keep his eyes from Betty's face. "Did you say the Hostess House?"

"Yes. That's what we came down for," said Mollie, who had been quiet just about as long as she could. "To help run it, you know—and everything."

"Especially 'everything,'" drawled Grace.

"Say, that's great!" cried Allen, beginning to see light. "You mean you're going to stay here—maybe for weeks—and see that everybody has a good time—us included? Gee, what luck!"

"I'm glad you think so," said Betty demurely, while Allen wished desperately to have her alone. "What were you in such a hurry about, when you nearly ran into us?" she asked, with interest.

"I was going to look up Frank and Roy, to tell them we'd been granted our five-day furlough. We were going to make a bee line home to Deepdale. Now," he added, eyes still on Betty's averted face, "we won't have to!"

Mrs. Watson smiled sympathetically, and, being an ardent matchmaker, looked forward to having even more of an interesting season than she had expected.

"And it's the greatest luck ever," Allen continued enthusiastically, as they walked slowly across the parade ground, "that we happened to get our furlough just now. What are you girls doing this afternoon?"

"Seeing the sights," said Mollie. "We're taking a half-holiday."

"Gee!" cried Allen, fairly capering in his delight. "This is altogether too good to be true. Wait till I tell the fellows."

"Oh, but we want to surprise them," said Grace, stopping short and looking abused. "When we've come all this distance to do it, it isn't fair for you to have all the fun."

"All right, you stay here then," said Allen, conducting them around the corner of one of the low wooden buildings, which the girls afterward learned was the mess hall. "I'll look up the fellows, and lead the poor unsuspecting——"

"Goodness, you'd think we were going to murder them," broke in Mollie impatiently. "I wish you'd do something and not talk so much."

"Anything to oblige—see you later." Allen saluted smartly and went off briskly in search of the other boys.

Betty's eyes almost unconsciously followed the fine, stalwart figure till it disappeared around the corner of one of the buildings, and Mollie, who had been watching her closely, suddenly put an arm about her in a little impulsive hug.

"He is splendid, dear," she whispered, and once more Betty flushed to the roots of her pretty hair.

They had only a few minutes to wait before Allen came striding back to them, with two other khaki-clad figures. The girls shrank farther back into the shadows of the building. Not until they were almost upon them did the boys catch sight of them. Then Roy and Frank just stood still and gaped, as Allen had done.

"Great jumping jerushaphat!" cried Roy, at last finding his tongue. "If it isn't the very people we wanted most to see in this world. Welcome, little strangers! Oh, gee, but you're welcome!"

Then Frank added some equally incoherent phrases, and for a few moments confusion reigned, while they shook hands over and over again, all talked at once to nobody in particular, and generally enjoyed themselves.

"And the best part of it is," said Roy enthusiastically, "that we can be free to show you girls about the place. And I tell you, it's something to see!"

Before the girls had been half shown about the place, they more than agreed with him. It was wonderfully inspiring, to see those hundreds of boys, with their splendidly trained young bodies and their determined young faces, knowing they were devoting their lives freely and cheerfully to the greatest cause in all history.

The girls peeped into the long, low buildings that were the sleeping quarters of the men, with their cots all in a row and clothes hung neatly along the wall. They saw the guardhouse, where unruly soldiers were confined and forced to a state of reasonableness.

They regarded it with awe, and Amy even backed away from it a little.

"I don't like barred windows," she said. "It always makes me shiver."

"Humph," said Mollie, the irrepressible. "You'd better get used to them, Amy, dear. Some day we'll be feeding the boys peanuts through the bars."

"Gee, isn't she complimentary?" said Roy, as they walked on. "You don't know what models of deportment we've been since we came here."

"Yes," put in Grace sweetly, "they say military training does work miracles!"

"It's too bad you missed guard mount this morning," said Allen, while the rest laughed at Roy's discomfiture.

"That's when they change the guard, isn't it?" asked Betty.

"Yes, and they're very formal about it," Allen continued. "It's really very impressive, and the band is a joy forever. You must get up bright and early in the morning."

"As if we didn't always," said Betty indignantly.

"Oh, listen to the music," cried Amy, her head on one side like a bird. "Isn't it great? I simply can't keep my feet still."

"It's over at the other end of the parade," said Frank, taking Grace's arm and leading her in the direction of the stirring strains. "Every nice afternoon they have a concert from three to four. It's mighty fine, too."

"Oh, I'm so glad I came," cried Betty, to whom music was like the wine of life.

"So am I," said Allen, drawing her away from the party and speaking softly. "I've seen your face so often in my dreams, Betty, that when you suddenly appeared before me I thought for a minute it was just another of them—more real and vivid, but still a dream. And you are a dream, Betty, the most wonderful dream in all the world!"

"Hush, Allen," she begged, though her heart was beating suffocatingly and she hardly dared to look at him. "Everybody is staring at us."

"At you, you mean." Allen looked about fiercely at his comrades, who indeed seemed very much attracted by his pretty companion. "I see where I'll have to lick the whole camp."

Betty's laugh rippled out merrily, and Allen looked more belligerent than ever.

"Don't think I could do it, I suppose," he was beginning, when they came suddenly upon the other members of the party, who were waiting for them.

"Betty, isn't it wonderful?" cried Mollie, lips parted, eyes shining as she slipped an arm through Betty's. "Now I want more than ever to be a soldier."

They enjoyed every minute of that hour's concert, and then felt abused because they could not have more. After that they visited the Y.M.C.A. hut, saw the officers' quarters from the outside, and otherwise amused themselves till the boys declared there was nothing more to be seen.

Then, just as the sun was sinking, the clear notes of the bugle broke in upon the evening stillness, and the girls glanced inquiringly at their escorts.

"That's retreat," Allen explained. "If you stand here, you can watch it at close quarters. Here come all the fellows. They have to stand at parade rest, left knee bent, weight on the right foot, guns held in front of them, till the old gun goes off."

"Gun?" Amy repeated questioningly, while the girls watched the ceremony with beating hearts.

"Yes. At reveille the morning gun goes off; and at retreat, the evening," Allen explained. "When you hear the gun to-night, just click your heels and stand at attention like all the rest of us."

Boom! The girls jumped but retained presence of mind enough to stand at attention as Allen had cautioned them. The boys were standing stiff and straight as ramrods, hands at salute, their young faces grave and tense.

The band played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and never had it thrilled the girls as it thrilled them now. It brought tears to their eyes, yet they wanted to shout with pride and patriotism. Their star- spangled banner, oh, long might it wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"Allen, Allen!" cried Betty when it was all over and they had turned away, "I'm proud, so proud, just to be—an American!"



CHAPTER XIX

FLAMES

For the girls during the happy, work-filled, pleasure-filled days that followed, only one cloud darkened the horizon. That was the continued strange behavior of Will Ford.

About a week after their arrival, Grace had received a letter from him, saying that he was coming on for an indefinite stay. Betty found her friend with the letter clenched tight in one hand, while the other crushed a handkerchief into a hard little ball.

"Why, Grace, what is the matter?" Betty sat down beside her and slipped a sympathetic arm about her shoulders. "Tell me, have you had bad news?"

"No, I suppose you couldn't exactly call it that," said Grace wearily, folding up the letter and replacing it carefully in its envelope. "As a rule I'd think it was mighty good news. Will is coming to Camp Liberty."

"Oh, has he enlisted, after all?" cried Betty impulsively, and the next minute could have bitten her tongue out for her thoughtlessness.

The tears had risen to Grace's eyes and she had turned away.

"No," she said, very softly. "He hasn't enlisted."

Betty's brow puckered in bewilderment.

"Did he say why he was coming on?" she asked, not knowing just what to say.

"He said he was coming on business," Grace replied listlessly, then added, with a sudden fierce outburst of emotion: "I wish he'd stay in Deepdale. I wish, if he can't be honorable and live up to his ideals like the other boys, he wouldn't come where they are. If he is my brother, I'm ashamed——"

"Hush, Grace, hush," cried Betty soothingly, putting a firm hand over her friend's mouth. "You're all excited and worked up now or you wouldn't say such things. Didn't I tell you before that Will has his reasons? Are you going to let a friend have more faith in him than his own sister?"

"Betty Nelson," Grace began angrily, then broke down and began to sob weakly. "I can't help it," she said, as Betty tried to comfort her. "I've always loved Will so, and been so proud of him. He's been such a good brother, too! I simply can't understand it!"

"Never mind," went on Betty soothingly, trying desperately to think of something really comforting to say. "Maybe after Will gets here he'll explain things. Till then, as my mother says, we'll just be 'canty wi' thinkin' aboot it.'"

But when the conversation was reported to the other girls, it troubled them a good deal, and they longed to solve the mystery. And when Will came he refused to be of any help whatever, keeping almost entirely to himself, and answering questions put to him vaguely, if at all. His actions became more and more mysterious, and it was absolutely impossible to make him out.

"Just leave him alone," was Allen's advice, and the girls were reluctantly obliged to follow it.

"But I wish I knew!" sighed Betty.

"Yes," was all Allen answered.

Then something happened that for a time drove the mystery from their minds. It was after a particularly long and hard day, when the girls had been entertaining at the Hostess House all morning and part of the afternoon.

Then about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, they had gone downtown to do some very necessary shopping, and had been unable to get back to dinner till seven o'clock; and that evening the boys had arranged to take them to the theater.

By the time it was all over, and the boys had left them at the Hostess House, they were very, very tired and very, very happy.

"I never felt so sleepy in my life," said Grace, sitting down on the edge of the bed and stretching her arms above her head. "And yet we've had such a good time. If somebody doesn't give me another chocolate I won't be able to stay awake long enough to get undressed. Thanks, Amy, you always were a friend of mine."

"Well, I never laughed so much in my life," declared Mollie, pulling off her slipper and wiggling her toes contentedly. "I think it's perfectly wonderful to go out with the boys in uniform. They look so splendid and we feel so very important."

"Goodness, don't you think they feel important, too?" yawned Grace. "I know that Teddy Challenger does."

Teddy Challenger was a new-made friend of the boys, whom Allen had brought along for Amy, Will having refused to make one of the party on the plea of having important business to attend to.

"Oh, I don't know," said Betty, thoughtfully running the comb through her hair. "He seems like a mighty nice fellow to me and the boys all like him."

"Well, Allen won't, if Teddy doesn't mind his P's and Q's," said Mollie, with a wickedly significant glance at Betty, which caused that young person to flush prettily.

"I don't even know what you mean," she announced demurely, and they all laughed at her.

"I wish you people would stop talking," Grace broke in plaintively. "I've simply got to get some sleep!"

And they slept the hearty sleep of tired girlhood till about four o'clock in the morning. Then Amy, in the room next to Betty and Mollie, rubbed her eyes, coughed a little, then sat up with a cry of alarm.

Smoke was curling thickly in around the crack in the door and the air was hot and suffocating. Somewhere the sound of crackling, snapping wood, the lurid flare of flames——

"Fire! fire!" she gasped, struggling to her feet and feeling blindly for her clothes. "Grace, Grace, wake up! Grace——" her voice rose to a scream as she saw that Grace was sleeping on.

"Oh, please, please wake up," she moaned, seizing Grace by the shoulders and shaking her wildly. "You must, you must! Grace, the house is on fire!"

Slowly the heavy eyelids opened, then Grace struggled to a sitting posture, supported by Amy's quivering arm, and gazed wildly about her. Then she sprang to her feet, swaying dizzily, and with Amy's arm still about her, they felt blindly for the door.

They found the knob at last and, after a nightmare moment when the flames roared louder, and the smoke clutched viciously at their throats, flung the door open and staggered into the hall.

A blast of heat and smoke sent them reeling back into the room. Amy closed the door with a little moan.

"The other stairs!" gasped Grace, fairly dragging her friend forward. "Maybe—it hasn't reached—them—yet——"

"There's—Mollie and—Betty," cried Amy, clutching at her throat and coughing spasmodically. In the frantic terror of the moment they had forgotten everything but their own great danger.

"We must—get—them—out!" gasped Grace, rushing into their chums' room and frantically shaking Betty, while Amy vainly tried to waken Mollie. The girls still slept on in the semblance of ordinary, healthy slumber.

"What can we do?" cried Amy hysterically. "We can't leave them here, and we can't——"

"Come on! We've got to—get some—help!" Grace fumbled for the knob and finally succeeded in getting the door opened.

As they had hoped, the stairway at the rear of the house was still intact, although the smoke was so dense they had to feel every inch of the way.

Oh, the nightmare of it! Long years afterward the girls would live it over again in their dreams, and wake up drenched in perspiration, quivering and shaking with terror.

When they finally reached the outer air they were smoke begrimed, wild-eyed and the tears were rolling down their faces unnoticed and unchecked.

The fire, which had started inside, and had gained a good foothold before any trace of it could be seen from the outside, had been discovered by one of the guards, who had immediately sent in an alarm. Already the shriek of the fire engine could be heard, soldiers were being hurried out from the barracks to help in the rescue work, and all was noise and confusion.

A group of women who had escaped from the house before the girls, and who stood huddled together in a terrified group, rushed forward at sight of them, and gathered about them eagerly.

But Grace was not to be detained. She pushed ruthlessly past the women, and ran to intercept a group of firemen who were rushing down upon them.

"Two girls," she gasped, catching one of them by the arm and holding on desperately. "At the head of the stairs—unconscious—get them——"

And then Grace, who had done her gallant best, tumbled down in a little heap, having fainted.



CHAPTER XX

THE RESCUE

Allen, rushing up with his company, gave one quick glance at the group of women and girls before the burning house, then strode grimly over to Amy's side.

"Where's Betty?" he demanded roughly, his voice sounding strange, even to himself.

"Allen, Allen, they've gone to rescue her," cried Amy, shaking like a leaf. "She's still in the house—-"

With a hoarse cry Allen turned, and ran like a madman toward the burning building. A fireman, stumbling gaspingly from the house, almost knocked him down.

"Isn't any use!" he cried. "That stair's on fire, too. We've got to reach 'em from the outside."

"Get out of the way!" cried Allen, shoving him roughly to one side.

The fireman called after him, but there was no stopping the terror that forced him on. Terror for Betty—up there alone—Betty—Betty. He clapped a hand before his eyes and stumbled blindly on.

Flames lapped at him hungrily as he forced his mad way through them, smoke choked him, blinded him, and yet he must go on. Betty—Betty... A section of the stairs gave way before him and he had to jump to keep from going with it.

Was this the head of the stairs? He felt for it with his hand and pulled it back with an involuntary cry of pain. He was horribly burned, his hands, his face, his hair—his clothing had started. He beat at them as he ran. He must live until he had rescued Betty—and then——

A door. Fumblingly he opened it—then forced it shut from the other side. Blindly he felt for the bed. Yes, she was here. Thank God he had found her! But there was another figure—someone else to save.

Then he felt a sharp pain. He looked down and found that the flames were rapidly creeping up—creeping up... There was a rug on the floor— with feverish haste he wrapped himself in it—smothering the flames. He must live until——

He staggered to his feet, lifted one of the unconscious figures in his arms and staggered with it to the door. A hades of flame leaped at him. It was too late. They were trapped!

He groaned aloud and great tears rolled down his face. Betty—Betty! Carefully he laid his burden down and staggered to the open window.

The firemen were raising a ladder to another window. He beckoned to them, he shouted to them in a hoarse voice that seemed to him to make no noise at all.

But they saw him and shifted the ladder to his window. Was there a chance, after all? The flames were eating away the door, were leaping into the room. Down below the firemen had stretched a net.

Sobbing now, his breath coming in great gasps, Allen rushed back to the bed, picked up one of the figures, and staggered with it back to the window. They saw him standing there; and a great cheer went up from the spectators.

Gathering all that wonderful reserve strength that comes to every one in time of greatest need, he swung his burden far out from the window—then dropped it.

Allen paused for a moment, steadying hand on the windowsill, then gathered himself for the last great effort. The bed was invisible now, the room an inferno—he had to fight every step of the way back to the bed. Then he found what he sought, and fought the slow fight back to the window.

But his strength was going—going—his arms were iron weights—the room was going black. With a great effort he fought off the faintness. Then he saw a great, helmeted head peering in at him from the window.

"Give her to me, son," said a hearty voice; then, it seemed to Allen miraculously, he was relieved of his burden. Swaying, dizzy, he clung to the windowsill to keep himself erect.

"Now I guess I can die," he heard himself saying, through an eternity of space.

"You just hold tight, son," said the hearty voice, as its owner carefully lowered himself and the poor little unconscious figure down the ladder. "I'll be back for you in jig time."

But it was an eternity while Allen waited, every nerve tense in the fight for consciousness, red hot irons searing his flesh, that roaring hades of flames creeping closer, closer——

"Your turn, son!"

Dimly he saw the helmeted head through a haze of smoke and tried to speak—but no sound came from between his cracked, parched lips. He swayed. A brawny arm gripped him like a vise.

"Can you climb out," asked the voice, "or will I have to carry you?"



Allen's head jerked up proudly, and he forced still a little more from that splendid reserve of strength. Afterward he could never remember how he clambered over that windowsill, and got his feet upon the ladder.

That he did it and managed the descent with the aid of the firemen, he afterward learned from his friends. All he could remember, was the great shout which came to him like a little murmur that went up from the crowd at sight of him.

He was a hero, a great hero, but at the time the fact interested him not at all. He wanted to sleep—to sleep—if they would only let him sleep!

Four days later, he awoke and looked around him lazily. A delightful drowsiness surrounded him; he was too comfortable even to inquire where he was.

Then a sweet voice reached his ears and he turned his head sharply.

"No, thank you," it said. "I think I'll take these to him myself, if you don't mind. This door? Thank you."

Fascinated, Allen watched the door as it slowly opened, admitting— Betty! Betty, sweeter and more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Her eyes widened at sight of him, and she ran forward impulsively.

"Allen!" she cried, drawing a chair to the bedside and taking his outstretched hand. "Oh, I'm so glad! I was afraid you were just going to sleep on forever. How do you feel?"

"Not at all," he responded whimsically, his eyes devouring her face. "I haven't been awake long enough to feel anything—except your hand in mine," he added softly.

She thoughtfully regarded the hand he still held, yet did not try to draw it away. Instead she smiled a little—a smile that set Allen's heart to throbbing painfully, and said, so softly he could hardly hear her:

"Aren't you just a little bit curious to know what I think of you— and everybody else, for that matter—after what you did the other day?"

"Yes, what do you think of me?" he asked breathlessly. "I've wanted ever since I can remember, to know that."

"I think," said Betty, flushing, yet meeting his eager eyes steadily, "you're the dearest and most wonderful person I ever knew."

"Betty," he cried hoarsely and would have leaped from the bed had she not forcibly restrained him. "Oh, Betty, Betty," he murmured over and over again. "Did you mean that—did you?"

"I—I'm not the only one," said Betty, startled at what she had done. "Everybody is talking about you and praising you to the skies, and there was even a piece about you in the paper. I—I'm afraid when you are able to get out and hear how everybody is raving about you, you'll be spoiled entirely."

"Betty," he commanded, in so very different a tone from any he had ever used before that she started and looked at him shyly, "what are you running on about such nonsense for? If I did anything, it was for you and because I loved you, Betty. There wasn't any heroism. I don't deserve any fuss about it and I don't want any thanks. I don't deserve any. You weren't hurt, Betty?"

"No," she answered softly, not daring to look at him. This was such a different Allen and so wonderfully attractive. "Mollie and I were both a little sick from the smoke and shock, but it didn't take us long to recover. You were the one who was so terribly burned that for one horrible long day, the doctors didn't know whether you'd pull through or not. Oh, Allen, that awful day!"

"Were you worried?" queried Allen gently.

"I—I never want to live through another one like it," she said with a little shiver, then suddenly rose to go. "The doctor said you mustn't be excited," she explained as he looked up at her reproachfully. "And I," she looked away again, "I just wanted to—thank you, Allen— but if you won't let me——"

"Betty," he broke in, an eager light of daring in his eyes, "I know it's sort of taking advantage—but—there's just one way you can— thank me. Won't you—please——"

Slowly his meaning dawned upon Betty, and the color flamed into her face. Then, light as thistledown, her lips brushed his cheek and she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.

With wildly beating heart Allen pressed a hand to his cheek and gazed longingly after her.

"Betty," he whispered. "Oh, my Betty!"



CHAPTER XXI

ALLEN A HERO

"Gee, Allen, but you're a lucky boy!"

It was Sunday afternoon, and the young folks had hired two automobiles for a trip out into the country. It was more than two weeks since the fire, and all but Allen had completely recovered from it. He, however, still felt a little "wabbly," so the boys and girls had conferred together, deciding that an automobile trip was just what he needed to complete his recovery.

Now at Roy's rather vague remark about his luck, he turned to him inquiringly.

"In just what way?" he asked. "I rather thought I was running out of it lately."

"Gee," said Roy, waxing excited, "do you call it hard luck to get a chance at being a hero, twice in three months, and have all the girls falling down and worshiping you, and all the old ladies patting you on the back——"

"I imagine that wouldn't have been particularly soothing," interrupted Grace, reaching, as always, for the ever-present candy box, "especially with poor Allen's back in the condition it was."