“Who’s talking about being dead and buried?” demanded a third voice, and they turned to see Grace in the doorway with the inevitable candy box under her arm.

“Can’t you choose a more cheerful subject?” she added, coming in and seating herself luxuriously in a big chair.  “There’s enough of that being done anyway—­”

“You talk as if getting dead and buried were some sort of new indoor sport,” interrupted Mollie, glad to have this old familiar enemy to spar with.

“Goodness, there’s no more sport in anything,” returned Grace, disconsolately.  “I don’t see why any old swell-headed German—­”

“Grace!” exclaimed Betty, but with twinkling eyes.  “What language!”

“Oh, I could do lots better than that,” returned Grace tranquilly, “if I weren’t in polite society.”

“You flatter us,” murmured Mollie.

“I know it,” Grace retorted, still calmly.  “Anyway, I was remarking that I didn’t see why any swell-headed old German was allowed to take the world by the ears and turn it upside down—­”

“Gee, who’s allowing him?” cried a masculine voice from the door, and the girls turned with a chorus of greetings to welcome Roy.

“We were just saying we thought you were dead,” remarked Mollie somberly, never lifting her eyes from the sweater as he seated himself beside her.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he replied cheerfully.  “As Frank remarked unflatteringly this morning, ’You are far from being a dead one—­go and reform.’”

“Was he speaking of me?” demanded Mollie Billette in deadly quiet, but Roy raised a placating hand.

“No, no, of course not,” he said hurriedly.  “He was speaking of me, poor worm that I am.  But, I say,” he added, looking around at the busily flying needles, “what’s the idea of the knitting.  We’ve got more sweaters and things than we know what to do with now.”

Mollie lifted her eyes long enough to give him a withering glance.

“Do you think you’re the only ones we care about?”

“I hope so,” he responded promptly and daringly.

“Do you think maybe we’d better leave, Betty?” inquired Grace with delicately lifted eyebrows, while Mollie flushed scarlet.

“If you do, I’ll never speak to you again,” cried the latter, in alarm, adding, to change the subject:  “Where are the other boys, Roy?  You usually travel in fours.”

“Well, as long as you didn’t say on all fours, it’s all right,” responded Roy in a weak attempt at a joke that focused three pairs of girlish eyes scornfully upon him.

“Roy!” they chorused.

“All right, don’t shoot,” he pleaded.  “What was that you asked me, Mollie?”

“I asked you,” returned Mollie, with deliberation, “where the other boys were.”

“I don’t know, and what’s more I don’t care,” replied Roy independently, leaning back and crossing his long legs with a sigh of content.  “We’ve all been trying to get leave to come over and see you girls, and so far I’m the only one who’s succeeded.  The old boy, that is, the colonel,” he corrected himself, gravely saluting the imaginary officer, “is drawing the reins pretty tight these days.  Looks,” he added, striving to keep the excitement out of his voice, “pretty much like business.”