And they did run, with the result that a moment later Mrs. Barton Ross was surrounded by four very much excited, gesticulating and pretty girls, all talking at once and all clamoring for her attention.
She watched them a moment, admiring their flushed cheeks and bright eyes, then laughingly held up her hand.
"One at a time," she begged. "I can play a different air with each hand on the piano, but I'm not gifted enough to understand four people all talking at once. Now, if you'll just say it all over again."
"Betty, you tell her," begged Amy, and so, eagerly, Betty put her request.
"I know it's probably very foolish," she finished, anxiously watching Mrs. Ross' kindly, interested face. "But we thought, just perhaps, it might be possible."
"There's no 'just perhaps' about it," said Mrs. Ross decidedly, and the girls wondered if they could believe the evidence of their ears. "In fact," she continued, "I was going to speak to you girls about that very thing this morning. You have been so successful in rousing the general spirit here, that I thought you would be just the ones to make a Hostess House at Camp Liberty a success. Why, yes, I think it can very easily be arranged."
Then the girls forgot dignity and decorum and everything else and just celebrated. In the exuberance of their joy they hugged Mrs. Ross until she gasped for breath, then they danced off down the street on feet that scarcely touched the ground.
"Oh, it's too good to be true," cried Mollie, when at last their excitement had quieted down a little; then, gleefully, "Won't the boys be surprised?"
"Let's not tell them," Grace suggested. "It would be fun not to let them know a thing about it till we actually got there. I want to see their faces."
"Who's that?" cried Mollie, grasping Betty's arm as a man sauntered out from a cross street, glanced at them, then quickly dodged back behind a house. "It looked like——"