“You needn’t look at mine,” Mollie retorted with spirit.  “Why is it that whenever you make a disparaging remark you never fail to look at me?”

“That’s easy,” Grace returned with a twinkle.  “All you have to do is to look in your mirror—­”

“Oh dear, and I suggested it,” mourned Betty, as they descended the stairs arm in arm.  “We’ll have to give them the cots, Amy; it would be murderous to let those two sleep together.”

“Ah, ’tis a deep, dark plot,” cried Mollie, staggering dramatically and almost falling downstairs.  “I see it all—­they get the bed while we, poor wretches that we are, toss our uneasy bones upon the cot—­”

Amy screamed and Grace covered her ears.

“Goodness, what do you think this is—­a ghost’s retreat?” demanded the latter, while Betty chuckled joyfully. “‘Toss our uneasy bones,’ indeed!”

“Does sound kind of grizzly, doesn’t it?” Mollie admitted.  “Just the same, I wager that’s what Betty intended.”

“Mollie, you wrong me!” cried Betty in dismay.  “I was simply trying to avoid a tragedy.  But, if you’re going to toss bones, anyway, you might as well do it in comfort; so—­”

“Oh, you goose,” cried Mollie affectionately, and in this manner they entered the den where Mrs. Watson was entertaining, or being entertained by, the little old woman.

The girls immediately took possession of the latter and joyfully escorted her to the upper floor to look over her new quarters.

“My, isn’t this fine!” exclaimed the guest, her face lighting up happily.  “A beautiful big bed and three fine windows to see the soldier boys from.  Are you sure,” she added, glancing from one to the other of the four eager faces suspiciously, “that I’m not putting you out?  Because, if I am—­”

“Why of course you’re not,” Betty fibbed stoutly, adding, with a swift change of subject:  “But I’m sure now that you would like to rest.  Look,” she added, with quick solicitude, as she saw how white the old lady had become, “your hands are trembling—­”

“No, no, no,” disclaimed the little old woman impatiently, as she gazed with set face out of the window that faced upon the parade.  “I’m a little cold.  And—­that boy—­” She pointed with quivering finger at a sturdy, khaki-clad figure, swinging happily over the parade in the direction of the mess-hall, “He—­he reminded me—­”

“Yes,” they cried, crowding about her solicitously, while Betty pushed a chair toward the window and gently forced her into it.

“He—­he was—­just like—­” The slight form was shaking and the words forced themselves from between her chattering teeth, “what my Willie boy would have been now—­if he hadn’t—­run away.  My little son!  My baby!”

CHAPTER IV

MRS. SANDERSON’S STORY

Tears were not only in her eyes now, but running down her wrinkled old face, and the girls, with the tears of real pity in their own eyes, crowded closer about her.