"Have you seen any of the boys lately?" she asked, after an interval of deep concentration. "We've been kept so busy here at the Hostess House lately with these other boys that our boys might as well be dead and buried for all I've seen of them."
"Who's talking about being dead and buried?" demanded a third voice, and they turned to see Grace in the doorway with the inevitable candy box under her arm.
"Can't you choose a more cheerful subject?" she added, coming in and seating herself luxuriously in a big chair. "There's enough of that being done anyway—"
"You talk as if getting dead and buried were some sort of new indoor sport," interrupted Mollie, glad to have this old familiar enemy to spar with.
"Goodness, there's no more sport in anything," returned Grace, disconsolately. "I don't see why any old swell-headed German—"
"Grace!" exclaimed Betty, but with twinkling eyes. "What language!"
"Oh, I could do lots better than that," returned Grace tranquilly, "if I weren't in polite society."
"You flatter us," murmured Mollie.
"I know it," Grace retorted, still calmly. "Anyway, I was remarking that I didn't see why any swell-headed old German was allowed to take the world by the ears and turn it upside down—"
"Gee, who's allowing him?" cried a masculine voice from the door, and the girls turned with a chorus of greetings to welcome Roy.