"Goodness, I know I couldn't!" said Betty, and then added as she pinned on the bunch of carnations Allen had brought her the night before: "We've just got to smile, though, whether we feel like it or not. We don't want the boys to remember us in tears."
"I should say not!" responded Grace emphatically. "When I cry I'm a perfect fright. That's why I never do it."
Betty chuckled despite the dull ache at her heart.
"I wasn't quite thinking of that," she said. "But it surely will be better if we're able to smile a little bit. Come on—let's practice."
They stood together before the mirror, doing their best to smile naturally, and their very failure to do it made them laugh at themselves.
"If we're not a couple of geese," said Betty, as arms intertwined, they descended the stairs. "That's about the first time we ever had to try to smile. Now for a bite of breakfast."
But, try though they did, they could not eat, and finally had to give it up entirely.
"We were all to meet at Mollie's, weren't we?" asked Grace, as they made their way down the sun-flooded street. "Oh, Betty, I'm afraid to meet anybody, I'm so sure I'm going to make a goose of myself. Will you hold my hand all the time?"
"Of course," said Betty, laughing unsteadily. "It's always hard to say good-bye to anybody you—you—like," she added, "but when they're going away to war and you may never see them again——"
"Please don't," begged Grace, squeezing her hand convulsively. "If you talk like that I just can't stand it, that's all. It wouldn't take very much——"