“We shouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel that way,” said Betty soberly.  “But we haven’t come to the joyful part, yet.  Just now we’ve got to keep cheerful and hold on hard to our hope and faith in the future.  We owe that to the boys, the boys who are fighting, perhaps dying for us, more than we owe it to ourselves.

“But now,” she added, forcing a lighter tone, “we’ve got a big treat before us and we’re not going to think of anything but just that.  Our letters, girls—­we’ve been forgetting them.”

The girls started, looked surprised, then instantly responded to the challenge of her lighter tone.

“Goodness, it’s you who made us forget them, Betty Nelson,” cried Grace, squeezing the Little Captain’s hand fondly, then falling to with a will on her own momentarily neglected mail.  “Just see,” she added wickedly, holding up two letters with the coveted foreign postmark before their envious eyes, “what an advantage it is to have a brother in the army as well as a—­a—­”

“Well, go ahead,” Betty teased, while the others laughed delightedly at her flaming color.  “What is that other thing you’ve got besides a brother, the mere mention of whose name makes you the color of a beet?—­I should say,” correcting herself with a demure little smile, “the color of a flaming sunset—­”

“That would be more poetic,” agreed Mollie soberly, while her eyes danced.  “But either description would be correct.”

“You geese,” cried Grace, trying vainly to hide her flushed face behind the letter she had opened.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She remindeth me of the graceful ostrich,” chanted Mollie cruelly, “who hideth his head and thinks thereby—­”

“Now I know you’re calling me names,” cried Grace, raising the flushed face and glaring threateningly at the back of the mischievous Mollie.

“Well, she at least said you were graceful,” chuckled Betty, tearing open a letter from Deepdale and still reserving the best till the last.  “Anyway,” she added, “we have better things to do than to engage in useless controversy.”

“I don’t know what it’s all about,” said Mollie, settling herself luxuriously to enjoy her own small pile of letters.  “But I’ll take your word for it, Betty, just the same.”

And while they read the dusk came down upon them softly like a mantle, and the setting sun sent ruddy rays to touch their young, bowed heads.

The last paragraph of Allen’s letter Betty read and reread, finally through a mist of tears that blurred the words and ran them in together.

“It won’t be long,” he wrote, “before we fellows will receive the orders that we’ve all been crazy for—­the orders that will take us to the front.  And then, Betty, there’s not a Hun that can stand before me.  For I’ve a memory, little girl, that will make me carry on to victory—­and you.  Will you be waiting for me, Betty, when it’s over?  Will you want me then?  For I’m coming to you, little girl.  As surely as the sun rises every morning and sets again at night, I’m coming to you.  Betty, dear, I’m loving you—­”