“All right, we’ll have ’em all draped in black, just for your special benefit,” said Grace dryly.  “Mollie, where did you put my stockings?”

“Goodness, what do you think I am?” retorted Mollie.  “Your little French maid?”

“Nothing half so cute,” returned Grace ungraciously, while Betty and Amy exchanged glances which, interpreted, meant:  “We’ll have our hands full with these two, to-day, all right.”

“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” Grace persisted.  “I asked you what you did with my stockings.”

“Oh, I’ve got ’em on,” replied Mollie sarcastically, smothering a yawn.  “I mislaid my slumber shoes and used them instead.”

The girls giggled and Grace looked around for an instrument of punishment.  Not finding any, she was forced to resort to sarcasm.

“I guess you must have caught that particular form of insanity from Roy,” she said.

“Well, as long as it wasn’t the measles—­” Mollie was beginning when Amy broke in with one of those absolutely irrelevant remarks of hers, that made her different from every one else.

“I wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “if the boys will fall in love with those nice little French girls.  They say they’re awfully attractive.”

“Amy, what ever put such a thing into your head?” cried Betty, while the other two stared at her wide-eyed, not knowing whether to laugh or to be indignant.

“Oh—­nothing,” she answered vaguely.  “I was just wondering, that’s all.”

“Well,” said Mollie, throwing back the covers preparatory to rising, “I might suggest that the next time you feel it coming on, you might choose something more comfortable, that’s all.  Wondering about such things might become wearing.  What’s that?” she asked, as a sharp tap sounded on the door.

“A caller, presumably,” Grace remarked, as she slipped on a dressing gown and approached the door.

The early morning caller proved to be, much to their surprise and delight, no other than Mrs. Sanderson.

The old lady’s eyes were unusually bright, and there was a flush on her face.

“I haven’t been able to sleep all night,” she said, her hands fluttering nervously in her lap.  “Ever since Betty told me the boys were going this morning I couldn’t think of anything but just that one thing.”

“I am sorry I told you then until this morning,” cried Betty, reproaching herself.  “I didn’t know it was going to make you feel bad.”

“Oh, it wasn’t your fault, dear,” the old woman hastened to reassure her.  “And it really didn’t make me feel bad—­not for them, anyway.  They’re lucky to be able to fight—­even to die—­for a country like ours.  Only,” she paused, and some of the light died out of her eyes, “I couldn’t help wishing—­”

“Yes,” they prompted gently.

“That my Willie boy could have gone with them,” she said, the words so soft that they had to lean close to her to catch them.  “I would have been so proud of him.”