her. "I'm so m-miserable I just don't want
to live at all."

"But, Honey, it isn't nearly as bad as it might be," said Betty, trying
to sooth while wanting desperately to know herself just how bad it was.
"You said he was only wounded, didn't you?"

"That's what the telegram said," Grace answered, wiping her eyes
drearily. "But how do we know but what he may be dead by this time?"

"We don't know, of course," returned Betty, recovering a little of her
optimism while she unostentatiously handed Grace a fresh handkerchief,
"but the chances are against it."

"But perhaps they said he was just wounded to l-let us down easy," cried
Grace, evidently convinced that there was no bright side to look upon.

"The Government doesn't do that; it hasn't time," argued Betty. "It
always lets you know the worst at once."

A gleam of hope came into Grace's eyes.

"Then you think there's a chance?" she queried, sitting up straight and
beginning to look a little more interested in life. "Do you think he may
get well?"

"Why, of course," said Betty, adding reasonably: "If you would tell me
just what the telegram said, I'd have more to go on."

"That's all it said--what I told you," replied Grace, relaxing wearily.
"Just said that he was wounded--nothing more. Dad is writing to
Washington to try to get more news. Of course, he has a great deal of
influence, being a lawyer with a good many friends in Washington, and he
may be able to find out something. I don't know."

"Here come Mollie and Amy," said Betty, glancing through the window. "I
guess," she added thoughtfully, "Amy probably feels pretty bad too."

"But she's not his sister," cried Grace, with a sudden flare-up of
jealousy that made Betty smile in spite of her heartache. She could not
help wondering how Grace would have taken it if it had been Roy instead
of Will who had been wounded.

But Grace's little fit of jealousy did not last long at sight of Amy's
drawn, white face and the traces of tears in her eyes. Instead, she
opened her arms to this other girl who was not Will's sister, yet loved
him too, and for a moment they cried on each others shoulders.

Meanwhile Betty and Mollie wandered over to the window and stood looking
thoughtfully out upon the lawn and not seeing any of it.

"Goodness!" said Mollie after a moment, shrugging her shoulders a little
impatiently, "of course, it's terrible to have Will wounded, and I can
imagine Grace being all cut up about it,