Then, while the boys obeyed, scrambling in any way, and Betty and Grace squeezed themselves into the front seat, Sergeant Mullins leaned over and said, very quietly:
"Thank you."
CHAPTER XIV
THE REINS TIGHTEN
"A week!" sighed Betty. "Oh, Mollie dear, a week's such a very little time!"
"Goodness, it isn't even that now," Mollie returned, dropping a stitch in the sweater she was making and not even noticing it—an almost unheard of procedure. "That is," she added, with a slight little flicker of hope, "if you're sure you heard the major aright, Betty. Mightn't he have been speaking of something else?"
"Well, I told you what he said," answered Betty, a trifle impatiently, for she also had dropped a stitch and saw before her the weary process of ripping out two whole rows of her helmet—and helmets were such mean things to make, anyway!
"When he spoke of a week," she added, ripping vindictively, "and then said that the boys would be glad the waiting was over, it seems to me there's just about one conclusion we can come to."
"Oh, all right, but you needn't be so cross about it," returned Mollie, who, being very cross herself, could not make allowance for the malady in any one else.