"I'm glad you didn't say what girl," retorted Grace, and therewith
subsided into her gloomy meditation again.

Betty took up her book and Amy went on with her knitting while the rain
came down in torrents and the surf thundered and roared.

Mollie turned from the window and looked at them, and the whole
situation suddenly appealed to her rather hysterical sense of humor. She
began to laugh, and the longer she laughed the harder she laughed till
she sank into a chair and shook with mirth.

The other girls first looked surprised, then alarmed.

Betty threw down her book and went over to her.

"For goodness sake, Mollie, what's the joke?" she asked, as Mollie
looked up at her with red face and watery eyes.

"If it's as funny as all that I think you might share it with us," added
Grace.

"Oh, it isn't funny," gasped Mollie, "it's h-horrible."

Then as suddenly as she had begun to laugh, she began to cry with great
sobs that tore themselves from her and seemed utterly beyond her
control.

Alarmed, the girls soothed and patted and comforted her till finally the
storm had passed and she became more quiet.

"You must think I'm a p-perfect idiot," she sputtered, raising swollen
eyes to them. "I don't know what in the w-world g-got into me. I just
went all to pieces."

"So we see," said Betty, while she gently wiped Mollie's eyes with a
clean handkerchief. "But please don't do it again," she added
whimsically. "I don't believe we could survive another one."

"But it's made me feel better," said Mollie, a minute later, as though
the discovery surprised her. "It's made me feel lots better," she added.

"I wonder if we couldn't all try it," suggested Amy.

"Yes, how do you get that way," added Grace, with interest. "I'm willing
to try anything once."

"It--it isn't pleasant while it lasts," said Mollie, adding with a
suggestion of a smile: "And I doubt if I could give you the recipe."

"I wonder," Amy suggested shyly after a little while, "if perhaps a
little music wouldn't help out. Won't you play for us, Betty?"

"Oh, Betty, please!" Grace took up the suggestion eagerly. "It would
take our minds off ourselves."

"Yes, do, Betty. You know you never refuse," urged Mollie, jumping up
and escorting the Little Captain to the piano.

Betty obediently sat down to the piano, but her fingers wandered over
the keys uncertainly. She did not want to play. Music, good music,
always roused in her a feeling of exquisite s