he corner of her eye, "it isn't like you
to be careless about your dress."

"Well, it isn't like me either to go moping around as if I had one foot
in the grave and the other was slipping," retorted Grace, with a spirit
that showed the experiment had worked. "I don't think it's nice for you
to make remarks like that when you know how I'm feeling and the excuse I
have."

"Nobody has any excuse for giving up and acting as if everything were
lost when it isn't," said Betty decidedly. "If our soldiers did that the
first time they had to retreat, how long do you suppose our army would
last?"

"But Will isn't your brother," insisted Grace stubbornly. "If he were,
maybe you would feel differently."

There was a moment's pause.

"No he isn't my brother," returned Betty, knowing she was going to hurt
her friend but believing that the result would justify the means. "But
if he were I would try to behave so that when he came back he would have
a right to be proud of me."

"Betty Nelson!" Grace sprang out of bed with her eyes blazing, "do you
know what you are saying? Do you mean that if Will should come back, he
wouldn't be proud of me?"

"Not if you keep on taking your trouble lying down," said Betty,
sticking gamely to her guns, though she was a little frightened at the
success of her experiment.

"I may," she thought to herself, "have done not wisely, but too well."

However, after one outraged and enraged stare at Betty, Grace pointedly
turned her back and began hastily to pull on her clothes. She finished
dressing before Betty, and without a word left the room.

"Now you have done it, Betty, my dear," said Betty making a little face
at her pretty reflection in the mirror. "I shouldn't wonder if Grace
would never speak to you again. Poor Gracie, perhaps I shouldn't have
said what I did, but I simply had to start something."

On her way downstairs she tapped at Mollie's door and found that she and
Amy were both up and dressing.

"Come in," called Mollie; "I need your help. Amy's eyes are so swollen,"
she explained, as Betty obeyed, "that she can't see to do me up. Just
the middle one, Betty. That's a dear."

As Betty obligingly did the "middle one" she stole a glance at Amy, who
was absently doing up her hair without looking in the mirror.

"Look out!" she cried suddenly, making both the girls jump. "You nearly
stuck that hairpin in your eye, Amy," she explained, as they looked at
her reproachfully, "and that