Mollie chuckled.

“There was probably a very good reason for his backing off,” she said.  “I shouldn’t wonder if after that he kept his meditations to himself.”

“Yes,” said Grace, with gentle malice, “I’ve long since concluded that it’s better to keep still about personal matters, no matter what you think.”

“Well, perhaps you have,” said gentle Amy with sudden spirit:  “But I must say I never noticed it.”

Grace struck a dramatic attitude.

“And you too, Amy?” she cried.  “Ah, this is too much—­”

“Yes, it’s all right, dear,” soothed Betty, hastily rescuing a basket.  “But please don’t step on the lunch.  These baskets cost four dollars and ninety-eight cents at a bargain sale.”

“Oh, how sordid of you, Betty,” chuckled Mollie.  “As if Grace cared for a mere little five-dollar bill.”

“Goodness, I don’t know whether I do or not,” remarked Grace plaintively.  “It’s so long since I’ve seen one I can’t tell.”

“As Allen remarks,” laughed Betty, as she gathered up the remains of the lunch, “‘money must think you’re dead.’”

They laughed at her, and then suddenly Betty changed the subject.

“You know, I overheard something the other day,” she said, “that’s just made me terribly blue whenever I’ve let myself think of it.”

“Oh, Betty,” gasped Mollie, jumping unerringly to the catastrophe they had been dreading all these months, “do you mean the boys have got their orders?”

“Oh, no, I don’t actually know a thing,” Betty hastened to assure her, but there was a brilliant light of excitement in her eyes that did not reassure the girls.

“Then what do you mean?” cried Mollie impatiently.  “Oh, Betty dear, I just haven’t realized how awful it will be until this minute.  When, those boys have actually gone, I’ll lie down and die, that’s all.”

“Well, for goodness sake, don’t tell them that,” beseeched Grace.  “Then they will think they can dictate.”

“Well, let ’em,” said Mollie recklessly.  “They can, for all I care.”

“Go on, Betty, do,” urged Amy, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously.  “Tell us what it was you heard.”

“Well, Major Adams was talking with the colonel,” Betty complied, her color bright, “and I just happened to catch a couple of phrases as I passed.

“‘In a week!’ the major was saying eagerly.  ’The boys will be glad of that, Colonel.  I’ve had all I could do to keep them pacified at all.  Once let them get at the Huns and it will be all over but the shouting.’

“‘Yes, they’re a fine bunch of young fighters,’ the colonel answered.  And, oh girls, I wish you could have seen the way he looked, so splendidly straight and martial and proud.  ‘I tell you, Major,’ he said, ’it’s a great thing to have the leadership of such lads as those.  They’re the pick of the nation.’

“And then I went on and my heart was beating so hard I had to hold on to it,” Betty finished.  “It seemed to me I could almost hear the cannon and see the boys—­our boys—­”