"Oh, do stop chattering," Mollie interrupted heartlessly. "Who cares what kind of noses we've got? Go ahead, Betty, you'd better get started before Grace gets to quarreling on the subject of eyelashes or something."
"I never quarreled with my eyelashes," said Grace haughtily. "I leave that to other people."
"My, isn't she conceited!" chuckled Betty. "Now I'm going to read," she added, letting her eyes rest upon the glaring headlines of the first page. "If you want to listen, all right; and if you want to talk about sweaters and eyelashes—"
"Oh, Betty, do go on," sighed Amy. "We've been waiting so long."
"All right," said Betty obligingly; then, as the full sense of what she read was borne in upon her, her face clouded and she bit her lip and shook her head.
"Girls," she began, and something in her tone made them drop their knitting for a moment and gather anxiously about her. "Those, those—Germans—"
"Huns, you mean," interrupted Mollie fiercely, as she read over the
Little Captain's shoulder.
"Have sunk another of our ships," said Betty, her lips set in a straight line. "And—and they think the loss will be heavy. Oh, girls, I can't read it—it's too horrible!"
She flung down the paper, but Mollie snatched it almost before it reached the step. Then with eyebrows drawn together, and twin spots of red flaming in either cheek, she read the account of the disaster from beginning to end.
"There," she said at last, flinging down the paper and glaring about her as though the girls themselves were at fault. "Now you see what we're knitting sweaters for, and—and—everything! Oh, if I could just put on a uniform, and take up a gun and—and—go after those—those awful Huns!"