“Why, here,” said Nan. “You needn’t do much, Pattikins, you’ve so many irons in the fire; Bumble and I will run this show.”
“Good for you! I have about all I can manage on a paltry twenty-four hours a day. But I’ll buy a valentine of you to send to my own particular Soldier Boy. Oh, Nan, isn’t he the dearest thing! Just look at this new picture of him! Did anybody ever look so well in a uniform?”
“He is sure great!” exclaimed Bumble, taking the picture; “I don’t wonder you rave over him, Patty.”
“Nor I,” Nan agreed. “He’s so big, yet so well-proportioned that he doesn’t look too big.”
“Oh, thank you, Nan! I dunno what I’d do if he were too big!” Patty showed mock alarm at the thought. “You see, the bigger he is the smaller I seem, but I’m trying to emulate Bumble, and get a little more weighty. It’s hard, though, with the food conservation to be looked after, and the sweetless days here and there——”
“You don’t have any sweetless days, if you read those long letters you get,” put in Helen.
“And pray, how do you know as to their sweetness?”
“Oh, I’m a mind reader, and when I see you peruse a letter, and fairly lap it up, like a cat, and then sit looking like the cat who ate the canary, I don’t have to be a detective to deduce that the letter was a sweet one!”
“Good for you, Bumble! You guessed right the very first time! My Captain’s letters are sweet, and so is he!”
“Sounds like a valentine! And he’s in love and so is she!”