While they rested Nancy slipped her brother’s last letter from her pocket and re-read it. Mabel caught her at it and tried to cheer her.
“Come on now,” she said, “it does no good grieving.”
“I’m not grieving. It—it makes me feel more certain he’s going to come out all right when I re-read his letter.”
“Let’s take a sprint around the block,” suggested Mabel. “We have a few minutes before we take off.”
“Not a bad idea. A little exercise will do us good.”
“We may never get a peep at this burg again. I sure don’t mean to miss anything on the way.”
Other girls were out pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the canteen, but Nancy and Mabel wanted to see more. They were in the heart of town, and the street back of the canteen had many attractive shop windows. Nancy kept glancing at her watch as they paused to admire the pretty dresses.
“Do you feel like someone who’s renounced the world when you look at those dresses?” asked Mabel.
“Oh, well, it won’t be forever,” Nancy said consolingly. “At least we can still wear evening dresses for dances on the post, Miss Hauser said.”
“Yeah! That will be a slight morale booster.”