"Well, they'll see the car, won't they?" Betty argued, a little impatiently, for even her sweet temper was beginning to give way under the strain. "They'll know by that that we're here and then if they miss us, they deserve to—that's all."
"Well, I suppose we'll have to take a chance," said Molly, almost crossly, as she jumped out after Betty. "I only wish it was all over. The waiting is getting on my nerves."
"Well, you don't think you're alone in that, do you?" Grace was beginning when Betty interrupted with a little hysterical laugh.
"I—I don't see how it's going to make 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.