"And Frank and Allen and Roy," added Mollie loyally. "You can't leave any one of our boys out, Gracie. They're all built on the same plan—as far as bravery is concerned."
"Of course, I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture of Roy as he had said good-bye—so youthfully gay, yet so strangely self-reliant.
And Mollie's eyes that could flash so wrathfully at times, were also soft with memory, and Amy, thinking of those last words that were almost, yes, so very near, a promise, flushed hotly and wondered if after all she ought—so soon—
"It's no wonder that we're proud of them—our boys," said Betty softly.
CHAPTER XIX
REAL TRAGEDY
A day or two went by during which the girls tried pluckily to go on with their duties about the Hostess House with bright and smiling faces. It was hard, though, to keep their thoughts from wandering to the four boys who were now on their way to face all the realities and all the horrors of the terrible war, and perhaps it was well that the leaving of so many made their duties lighter than usual.
On their return from the station after seeing the boys entrain they had found a letter from their friend, Mrs. Barton Ross, of their home town of Deepdale, head of the Young Women's Christian Association, under whose auspices the Hostess House at Camp Liberty was run. In this letter Mrs. Ross had said that she had sent to the girls a box of books for which they had sent a request—books all of which one boy or another had asked for, and which the regular Camp library had not been able to supply.
The books had now come, Mollie had learned on a visit to the postoffice, and as it was a heavy package she had got out the car and with the other girls had run down for it.