“Don’t you believe her,” said Betty whimsically.  “She only wants to find out what you left in your will, Amy.”

“I wouldn’t dare tell her now, anyway,” returned Amy, with a twinkle.  “Methinks it might very easily become my death warrant.”

“How so?” queried Mollie with interest—­or perhaps it might be said, Mollie’s back expressed interest.  For Mollie’s back could express, Grace had once said, “more emotions in a minute than most people’s faces could in a year.”  And, riding as they so often did, in full view of that expressive back, the girls had come to interpret its owner’s emotions correctly in nine cases out of ten.  So now they were able to detect a very quickened interest.

“Why,” Amy explained naively, “it’s barely possible that I’ve left something to Mollie, too, isn’t it?”

“Barely,” agreed Mollie dryly.

“Well,” Amy chuckled, “then what would be easier than for Mollie to precipitate an accident, dash my brains out against some convenient tree, and then brazenly protest all innocence in the murder.”

“Nothing,” said Mollie, with the same dryness of intonation, “except the bare possibility of dashing my own brains out in the transaction.”

“Oh, well, it could be fixed,” said Amy with confidence.

“Do you really think so?” Mollie’s back once more betrayed a lively interest, and the girls chuckled.  “Suppose you tell me about it.”

“And sign my own death warrant?” returned Amy plaintively.  “Goodness, you must think I’m foolisher than I am.”

“Impossible,” retorted Mollie and once more Amy sighed and folded her hands resignedly in her lap.

“All right,” she threatened, “if we only live through this, I’ll change my will, that’s all, and leave everything to Betty and Mrs. Sanderson.”

“Goodness, what have I done?” cried Grace in dismay.  “Didn’t I just offer you another candy and—­and—­everything”

“I didn’t notice the everything,” said Amy.

“Well, you noticed the candy,” retorted Grace with spirit, “and it was the fattest, juiciest one in the box, too.”

“Well, give it back, Amy,” directed Mollie, and Amy, in the act of swallowing the fat juicy chocolate, choked on a chuckle.

“Too late,” she cried.  “It is decapitated.”

“I thought I heard its death rattle,” sighed Grace, mournfully adding, as the girls laughed at her:  “Oh, I don’t know what’s the matter with me this morning.  I never felt so foolish before.

“Girls,” she said, and suddenly her voice quivered and her eyes filled, “I’ve tried so not to think of it, but I can’t fight it off much longer.  Will and I have always been such chums, played and worked and even—­quarreled—­together—­”

“Please don’t, Gracie,” cried Betty, her face flushing and her eyes growing dark and wide.  “It would be so easy just to g-give way, but we’re in the service, too, you know, and we must be at least as b-brave as the boys.”