ke us feel very much better to quarrel
about it," she said, adding whimsically: "Come ahead you two--kiss and
make up before the boys come. You know they always said it made them
jealous enough to commit murder when we did it in their presence."

They laughed unsteadily, and Mollie threw an affectionate and repentant
arm about the Little Captain's shoulders.

"Betty, dear, you make me ashamed of myself," she said impulsively. "As if
you didn't have enough to worry about yourself without my making you more.
I'm a selfish pig, that's all."

Just then the sound that they had all been unconsciously listening for
struck heavily upon their ears. The regular tramp, tramp of hundreds,
thousands, of marching feet!

"Oh, they're coming, they're coming!" cried Amy, in a sort of suffocated
little moan.

"Well, of course they're coming," retorted Mollie, her nerves jumping with
the effort to speak coolly. "We've been almost expecting that they would,
haven't we?"

"Oh, I know. But it all seemed like a terrible d-dream till now," returned
Amy, looking so like a bewildered child that Betty put a comforting arm
about her and drew her into the little recess beside her.

"It isn't a dream, Amy dear," she said, very steadily. "I don't think we
were ever more fully or terribly awake than we are now. Not even that day
when we heard of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, did we realize just what
this war was going to mean to us. It's only by some sacrifice--some
personal sacrifice--" but the brave voice broke and died into silence
while she listened with almost straining intensity to that regular beat of
marching feet, coming nearer, ever nearer--

And in the distance came the long, warning whistle of the train--the train
that was going to take them away!

"Oh, keep still," cried Mollie, turning with sudden, unreasoning fury
toward the oncoming locomotive with the smudge of smoke in its wake, her
hands clenched passionately and her black eyes smoldering. "We know you're
coming for them--Roy and Allen and Will and Frank and--and--all the
others. But that's no reason why you have to rub it in, is it?"

At any other time, the rather unreasoning attack upon the train would have
seemed funny to the girls, and even in their trouble a faint gleam of
humor came to them, but no one laughed, no one even smiled.

"I--I wonder," said Grace, nervously patting a stray lock of hair into
place beneath the smart little hat which, under the spell of e