They laughed at her, and then suddenly Betty changed the subject.
"You know, I overheard something the other day," she said, "that's just made me terribly blue whenever I've let myself think of it."
"Oh, Betty," gasped Mollie, jumping unerringly to the catastrophe they had been dreading all these months, "do you mean the boys have got their orders?"
"Oh, no, I don't actually know a thing," Betty hastened to assure her, but there was a brilliant light of excitement in her eyes that did not reassure the girls.
"Then what do you mean?" cried Mollie impatiently. "Oh, Betty dear, I just haven't realized how awful it will be until this minute. When, those boys have actually gone, I'll lie down and die, that's all."
"Well, for goodness sake, don't tell them that," beseeched Grace. "Then they will think they can dictate."
"Well, let 'em," said Mollie recklessly. "They can, for all I care."
"Go on, Betty, do," urged Amy, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously. "Tell us what it was you heard."
"Well, Major Adams was talking with the colonel," Betty complied, her color bright, "and I just happened to catch a couple of phrases as I passed.
"'In a week!' the major was saying eagerly. 'The boys will be glad of that, Colonel. I've had all I could do to keep them pacified at all. Once let them get at the Huns and it will be all over but the shouting.'