"Allen!" screamed the girls, all except the brown-haired, pink-cheeked one, who, for some unaccountable reason hung back behind the others. "You perfect angel!"
"Why didn't you let us know you were coming so that we could have been prepared?"
"Oh, isn't your uniform lovely!"
"And look at the dressed-up leggings!"
These and various other exclamations like them, coupled to the fact that all the girls, except the one that he wanted to most, had kissed him, rather overwhelmed young Lieutenant Washburn and took his breath away.
His three companions, however, finding themselves neglected and out in the cold, interfered at this point and saved his life.
"Betty, what are you hiding away back there for?" cried Mollie to the Little Captain, whose cheeks were pinker than ever and whose eyes were shining very brightly with a sort of mixture of joy and fright. "Don't you know Allen in his uniform?"
"Aren't you going to kiss him?" chimed in Grace wickedly.
"We all did," added Amy.
But Betty had no intention of kissing Allen, although he begged her to with his laughing eyes and she continued backing into the doorway, until Mrs. Irving, coming up behind her, caught her up and pushed her out upon the porch again.