loss must mean to her, although it was out of the question that they
could fully understand the extent of Vera's loneliness, the feeling of
emptiness which the future now seemed to offer her.

Vera's long and devoted friendship with Billy had separated her from the
usual intimacy with other girls, nevertheless she was a general
favorite. For a good many years Billy had required whatever time and
thought she could spare from her ordinary duties and affections.

"I think, Vera, that Tante recently has heard some unexpected news of
Gerry," Sally finally announced with the proper degree of solemnity and
with a due sense of dramatic values.

At least she was a dramatic success to the extent of surprising her
audience.

"What authority have you for such a statement, Sally?" Alice Ashton
demanded in the superior voice and manner which Alice now and then
affected.

Sally shrugged her shoulders. "I haven't any authority, I have a
'hunch'," she returned, appreciating how painfully her slang would annoy
her intellectual sister.

"But how is it possible that Gerry could have written? Don't you think
she and Felipe are still hiding in Mexico? We know that much from what
Mr. Morris has told us! If Gerry should write to Mrs. Burton she might
betray her own and Felipe's secret and she would not do that," Marta
Clark protested.

"I did not say Gerry had written, I only said that I believed Tante had
received some information concerning her," Sally answered, undisturbed
by criticism.

In response to this speech the expressions on the faces of the four
other girls became curiously alike.

"I don't believe if I were Mrs. Burton I should ever take an interest in
Gerry again," Marta Clark announced. "Perhaps I am more in a position to
say this than any of the rest of you, because all of you have some past
association with Mrs. Burton; she was an intimate friend of your
mothers. She simply chose to be kind to me and to invite me to spend
this summer with her Camp Fire group without any especial reason, just
as she has been good to Gerry. If I should repay her kindness as Gerry
has done, I should never dare make the effort to see her again, or to
ask her forgiveness, no matter how greatly I might desire it."

"I feel just as you do, Marta," Bettina Graham agreed.

But Sally gave a little protesting cough, holding a chocolate drop
suspended in the air for an instant.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged," she declared sententiously, a