t if it comes, we'll know how to
meet it.'"

"And th-that's my brother," cried Grace, half tearful, yet radiant with
pride in him. "Those horrible old Huns won't have even half a chance when
he gets at them."

"And Frank and Allen and Roy," added Mollie loyally. "You can't leave any
one of our boys out, Gracie. They're all built on the same plan--as far as
bravery is concerned."

"Of course, I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture
of Roy as he had said good-bye--so youthfully gay, yet so strangely
self-reliant.

And Mollie's eyes that could flash so wrathfully at times, were also soft
with memory, and Amy, thinking of those last words that were almost, yes,
so very near, a promise, flushed hotly and wondered if after all she
ought--so soon--

"It's no wonder that we're proud of them--our boys," said Betty softly.

CHAPTER XIX

REAL TRAGEDY

A day or two went by during which the girls tried pluckily to go on with
their duties about the Hostess House with bright and smiling faces. It was
hard, though, to keep their thoughts from wandering to the four boys who
were now on their way to face all the realities and all the horrors of the
terrible war, and perhaps it was well that the leaving of so many made
their duties lighter than usual.

On their return from the station after seeing the boys entrain they had
found a letter from their friend, Mrs. Barton Ross, of their home town of
Deepdale, head of the Young Women's Christian Association, under whose
auspices the Hostess House at Camp Liberty was run. In this letter Mrs.
Ross had said that she had sent to the girls a box of books for which they
had sent a request--books all of which one boy or another had asked for,
and which the regular Camp library had not been able to supply.

The books had now come, Mollie had learned on a visit to the postoffice,
and as it was a heavy package she had got out the car and with the other
girls had run down for it.

As the car rolled up to the curb and stopped once more before the Hostess
House, Betty waved her hand to an upper window.

"There's Mrs. Sanderson," she explained as they got out of the automobile.
"She looks kind of pathetic sitting up there all alone."

"She always looks pathetic to me," sighed Amy, winding an arm about the
Little Captain as they ascended the steps. "But everybody looks sadder and
more forlorn than usual the past few days."

"Well, we can't be sad and forlorn an