isn't the place for it you know."

Amy smiled a crooked little smile and put the unruly hairpin in the
right place.

"I'm apt to do anything to-day," she said, with a sigh that seemed to
come from her toes. "If any of you want to live, you had just better
keep out of my way, that's all."

"Isn't it just wonderful weather?" said Mollie sarcastically, gazing out
at the leaden landscape. "Just the kind of a day to put the J into Joy."

"If something doesn't happen pretty soon," put in Amy, with another deep
sigh, "I'll just naturally pass away. I wonder," she added, looking
really interested in the subject, "if anybody ever did die of the
blues."

"I don't believe so--but there's always hope," said Betty dryly, adding
with sudden spirit; "Now look here, girls, something's got to be done
about this. We really will make ourselves sick if we don't try to look
on the hopeful side of things. It won't do anybody, least of all,
ourselves, any good to sit here and mope all day. We've just got to
fight against depression and cheer up."

"That's all very well for you, Betty," Amy voiced almost the same
sentiment as Grace had only a few moments ago, "but you are the only one
of us who hasn't been hurt personally. Suppose it were Allen. Would you
feel the same way then--about cheering up and taking it bravely?"

Betty flushed angrily, at the same time feeling a wild desire to go away
and cry.

"I hope I would," she said steadily. "And if I didn't, I would surely
feel ashamed of myself. It isn't," she paused at the door and looked
back at them, "as though Will or the twins were dead. We have hope in
both cases, so I don't see any use of giving up. You talk," she choked
back a sob, "as though I didn't sympathize, as if I were an outsider
just because nothing has happened to--Allen--yet--" her voice choked in
a real sob this time and she fled from the room.

The girls gazed after her unhappily.

"Did you ever!" gasped Mollie.

"I didn't mean to make her feel bad. Betty, of all people!" said Amy,
conscience stricken. "And of course she's right about our trying to
cheer up. Only, I don't want to, someway."

"Betty's a darling," said Mollie thoughtfully. "But of course she can't
quite realize how badly we feel. If it were her little brother and
sister, now--"

And so gradually Betty came to feel herself more or less of an outsider
with these girls who were so close to her. And it was all because they
misunderstood her effor