Betty opened her eyes slowly, and blinked at the sunlight that flooded the room. She had a vague sort of idea that something unusual was going to happen, but was too lazy and comfortable to realize just what that something was.
Then suddenly it came to her, and she sat up in bed with a start. They were going home! That was the big event; and somehow, she did not feel as sorry as she usually did at the end of a vacation. In fact, she was almost eager to leave this island, with its powder mills and spies that shot boys you liked, and robbed you in the bargain—quite eager to drop play, and do her bit for the country she loved.
"Betty, what are you doing awake so early?" queried Grace petulantly.
"If you can't sleep you might lie still, and let me."
"Have some candy, Gracie," Betty invited, pulling the empty candy box from the table beside the bed, and handing it to her friend. "It may help your disposition."
"Goodness, what it is to have a reputation!" said Grace plaintively. "People think they can insult and slight me, and then make it all up by handing me a bon-bon!"
"Not guilty," laughed Betty merrily. "If you'll look a little closer, you'll see there is not a bit of candy in that box! No, don't glare at me like that, Gracie, dear. The only way you could frighten me, would be by getting up early. Then I'd know there was something wrong."
"So would I," said Grace, stifling a yawn. "I'm altogether too good-natured to frighten anybody—even myself."
"Well, you can stay there all day if you want to," said Betty, inserting two determined little feet into two pretty bedroom slippers, and running across to the open window, "but I wouldn't if I were you. It's too wonderful a day in the first place, and in the second, I can imagine pleasanter things than staying alone on this island over night."
"Oh, that's so!" cried Grace, sitting up and staring at Betty. "I forgot we were going home to-day. Oh, dear, now I will have to get up."
"How awful," mocked Mollie, who had been watching them for some time from the bed in the alcove. "It's an outrage, having to get up in the morning. I think we should have been made so we could sleep all the time."