ore Grace
had seemed like her nearly-always jolly self. She and her three chums,
including Betty, had been down town shopping, and Grace, as usual, had
indulged in chocolates--her one failing, if such it can be called.

"Surely she can't be ill," thought Betty. "Ill from too many chocolates?
I've seen her take twice as many as she did yesterday, and she doesn't
look ill."

With this half-formed thought in her mind Betty looked more critically
at her chum. Aside from the tears--which seldom add to a girl's
beauty--there was no change in Grace Ford.

That is, no change except one caused by something rather mysterious,
Betty thought--something that was hard for Grace to tell, but which had
deeply affected her.

There came a ring at the door. Betty started toward it from the library,
where she and Grace had gone when Grace let her chum in a short time
before.

"Shall I answer, Grace?" inquired Betty, hesitating.

"Yes, do, please. I think Katy is with mamma. She took the news very
much to heart. Let Amy and Mollie in, and then I'll tell you all about
it. Oh, but I don't know what to do!"

"Now look here, Grace Ford!" exclaimed Betty briskly, pausing a moment
on her way to the door. "You just stop this! If no one is dead, and no
one is hurt, then it can't be so very dreadful. You just stop now, and
when we all get together we'll help you in whatever trouble you have.
You know that; don't you?"

"Oh, yes, Betty, I do. You aren't the 'Little Captain' to all of us for
nothing. I'll try and not cry any more."

"Do. It--it isn't at all becoming. Your nose is positively like
a--lobster!"

"It is not, Betty Nelson!" Grace flared.

"It certainly is. Look in the glass if you don't believe me. There--take
my chamois and give it a little rub before I let in Amy and Mollie. It's
only nice, clean talcum--you needn't think it's powder."

"All right--as if talcum wasn't powder, though," and Grace smiled
through the traces of her recent tears.

"That's better," decided Betty, with a nod of her shapely head and a
bright look from her sparkling eyes. "Yes, I'll be there in a moment,"
she called as there came another ring at the bell.

"Shall I bring them right in, Grace?" she called over her shoulder, as
she neared the door.

"Yes--yes. I might as well--have it over with," faltered the weeping
one.

"Gracious, you'd think someone was going to be hanged, or beheaded, or
sent to the galleys for life--or some other dreadful