Roy turned half way round, and regarded Amy's flying fingers and bent head soberly for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he said then, so gravely that she looked up in surprise, and even Grace stopped knitting. "I didn't mean that we fellows don't appreciate what you girls are doing for us. We do—and there'll come a time when we'll appreciate it still more. When we're in the trenches up to our knees in mud and water, when the wind finds the chinks in our clothing, and freezes us to the bone, when—"
"Oh, please don't!" cried Amy, clapping her hands to her ears. "I can't even bear to think of those things."
"Yet those are some of the things we've got to think about," said Roy, still with that unusual gravity. "It's because you girls have thought of those things, that you're giving your time and energy to preparing for them, and warding them off. Please don't ever again think that we're ungrateful."
"We won't," said Amy softly, fighting back a sudden mistiness which had come before her eyes. "We'll just go on knitting ten times harder than before."
"I think we're missing something," came Betty's voice from the doorway, where she stood with her arm intertwined in Mollie's. "The biscuits are in the oven now, and we're going to talk to you while they're baking."
"Will it take long?" asked Roy, sniffing hungrily.
"I like that," said Betty, with a little grimace, as she flung herself upon the top step, pulling Mollie down beside her. "When Roy has to choose between biscuits and us—"
"We're not in it," finished Mollie with a merry laugh.
Roy looked pained.