off her apron.

"I'll bring the car around for you," said Henry.

"Thank you." She smiled at him and turned to the girls. "You know what
we are having for dinner, Laura. Priscilla will help make the
shortcake, I'm sure. I will be back as soon as I can."

Mutely the four watched the little car roll out of the yard and down
the hill.

Then Henry spoke. "Letters?"

"From Bob," said Laura.

"Did she read 'em?"

Laura shook her head.

"Gee!" said the boy.

"Perhaps she thought she couldn't," hesitated Laura, "and go over
there."

A moment of silence held the room. Henry broke it. "Well, we're not
going. Let's hear 'em."

Elliott took a step toward the door.

"Needn't run away unless you want to," he called after her. "We always
read Bob's letters aloud."

So Elliott stayed. Laura's pleasant voice, a bit strained at first,
grew steadier as the reading proceeded. Henry sat whittling a stick
into the coal-hod, his lips pursed as though for a whistle, but
without sound, and still with that odd sober look on his face.
Priscilla, all the jumpiness gone out of her, stood very still in the
middle of the kitchen floor, a kind of hurt bewilderment in the big
dark eyes fixed on Laura's face. Nobody laughed, nobody even chuckled,
and yet it was a jolly letter that they read first, full of spirit and
life and fun. High-hearted adventure rollicked through it, and the
humor that makes light of hardship, and the latest slang of the front
adorned its pages with grotesquely picturesque phrases. The Cameron
boys were obviously getting a good time out of the war. Bob had got
something else, too. The letter had been delayed in transmission and
near the end was a sentence, "Brought down my first Hun to-day--great
fight! I'll tell you about it next time if after due deliberation I
decide the censor will let me."

"Some letter!" commented Henry. "Say, those aviators are living like
princes, aren't they! Mess hall in a big grove with all the fixings.
And eats! More than we get at home. Gee, I wish I was older!"

"So you could come in for the eats?" smiled his sister.

"So I could come in for things generally."

"You couldn't work any harder if you were a man grown," she told him.

"Huh!" said Henry, "a lot I hurt myself!" But he liked the smile and
the praise, wary though he might pretend to be of it. Sis was a good
sort. "You're some worker, yourself. Let's get on to the next one."

The second letter--and it too bore a da