XIX
THEY STAND AND WAIT
"Why so pensive?"
"Pensive! Am I? I did not mean to be; it is certainly not exactly polite when I have company." Julia smiled at Lois as she spoke, for Lois was making one of her infrequent visits to the Mansion, and the two girls had been reviewing many of the events of their college years.
"Yes, you were pensive; you looked as if something weighed on your mind. That particular expression has vanished now," concluded Lois; "but since I caught that very unusual look, please tell me what it means. Is it the war?"
"Oh, no, not wholly."
"Then partly; do you wish to go as a nurse?"
"Oh, no; that is a kind of personal service for which I have never thought myself especially well adapted. I leave that to experts like you and Clarissa, for I suppose that now Clarissa is on her way to Cuba, ready to do the bidding of the Red Cross. Why, Lois, with your bent in that direction I do not wonder that you are pleased at the prospect of going where you can really do some good."
"I am not altogether sure that I can go. My mother is opposed to my going, and to-day when I went to see Miss Ambrose I found her seriously ill. I came to town to do an errand for her, but I could not resist running up here for a few minutes; I wished to know what you had heard from Clarissa."