ould not be missing either. After a minute that stupefying fact became
equally clear.

Then slowly they regained the use of their tongues.

"Did you hear what I heard?" asked Mollie, looking from Grace to Amy and
back again.

"I think I'm awake," Grace answered, with the same incredulous look in
her eyes.

"She said," Amy repeated slowly, "that she had received a letter from
Allen. Then the report that he was missing must have been a mistake."

"It looks that way," said Mollie, two spots of color beginning to burn
in her face. Then she turned to the boy who was still staring stupidly
from one to the other of them. Even the story of Luke Bailey had been
temporarily driven from his mind.

"Miss Nelson," Mollie explained, taking pity on his bewilderment, "has
received the most wonderful news, and we can't thank you enough for
bringing it to her. Can't we get you a cup of tea or something?" she
offered, rather vaguely.

But the boy refused, and seeing that they were all tremendously excited
about something, he finally took his leave, feeling very much abused
that his story of Luke and his adventures had not been listened to with
the attention it deserved.

Once the door was closed behind this angel in disguise, the girls rushed
after Betty and were met and nearly bowled over by that delirious little
person herself.

"He's not missing--never was!" she cried, waving the letter wildly in
the air, beside herself with relief and joy. "He's just as well as ever
he was, and Grace darling, and Amy, too, he says, he says--"

"Oh, what?" cried Grace, her face growing white while Amy clutched the
back of a chair.

Betty tried to pull herself together. She turned the pages of the letter
in search of a particular place. Finding it, she began:

"He says that Will--Oh read it," she cried, thrusting the letter into
Grace's hands. "There it is--that paragraph. Read it aloud, Grace. Oh, I
think--I think--I'll die of joy!"

CHAPTER XXIV

HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS

Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them
away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as
the marvelous truth came home to her.

"'Poor old Will certainly did have a narrow
escape,'" she read, "'but thanks to the gods he is
out of danger now. I went to see him
yesterday--got leave for the first time in
weeks--and he was looking mighty chipper. No