s.

"What time is it, Amy?" Betty inquired a little anxiously. "I'm afraid we
stopped to talk too long to those women who came out to see their nephew,
and I don't want to be late."

"We have just a minute to spare," returned Amy, and they quickened their
pace.

"Wouldn't it be fun," said Mollie, her eyes sparkling, "if we could only
meet the boys? I'd just like to pay them back for being so silly!"

"Maybe they'll be in the drill," drawled Grace hopefully.

"That would be adding insult to injury," Betty chuckled. "Then they never
would forgive us."

"I just hate jealous people, anyway," added Grace, diving into her pocket
and bringing forth a luscious bonbon which Mollie eyed covetously. "I
think it's so ridiculous and narrow, don't you?"

"I think it's a good deal more ridiculous and narrow," grumbled Mollie,
still hungrily eyeing the rapidly disappearing chocolate, "to keep all the
candies to yourself."

"Oh, goodness! Take one," returned Grace, offering a capacious pocket. "I
didn't know you were such a shy and shrinking little violet, Mollie. You
usually are perfectly capable of helping yourself."

"Well, not out of your fuzzy old pocket," Mollie retorted ungraciously.
"Why didn't you bring the box along?"

Grace eyed her pityingly.

"Wouldn't I look nice," she demanded, "lugging a candy box along to a
bayonet drill?"

"I think you'd probably be exceedingly popular," Betty broke in, with a
chuckle. "You'd have all the boys around you in earnest."

"And then what would Roy say?" teased Amy. "He'd never speak to poor Grace
again."

"Poor Grace, indeed!" sniffed the owner of the name scornfully. "I'd just
like to have anybody try to 'poor Grace' me! He'd never do it a second
time."

"Goodness, don't look so ferocious, Gracie," Mollie soothed her. "Some one
give her another candy--do."

"I'm not a cripple," Grace retorted, evidently in a belligerent mood.
"I've always been quite able to help myself."

"So we've noticed," murmured Mollie irrepressibly.

"Will you two please listen to reason?" queried Betty, in her primmest
tones.

"Yes, grandma," replied Mollie soberly--which was so ridiculous that even
Betty dimpled. "What have we done now?"

"Nothing. It's what you may do," Betty answered, adding, in an explanatory
tone: "You see, we are just about to enter the sacred precincts of the
drill ground, and it is fitting that we do so with an air of propriety and
sobriety."

"Goodness, is she i