"Can't you choose a more cheerful subject?" she added, coming in and
seating herself luxuriously in a big chair. "There's enough of that being
done anyway--"

"You talk as if getting dead and buried were some sort of new indoor
sport," interrupted Mollie, glad to have this old familiar enemy to spar
with.

"Goodness, there's no more sport in anything," returned Grace,
disconsolately. "I don't see why any old swell-headed German--"

"Grace!" exclaimed Betty, but with twinkling eyes. "What language!"

"Oh, I could do lots better than that," returned Grace tranquilly, "if I
weren't in polite society."

"You flatter us," murmured Mollie.

"I know it," Grace retorted, still calmly. "Anyway, I was remarking that I
didn't see why any swell-headed old German was allowed to take the world
by the ears and turn it upside down--"

"Gee, who's allowing him?" cried a masculine voice from the door, and the
girls turned with a chorus of greetings to welcome Roy.

"We were just saying we thought you were dead," remarked Mollie somberly,
never lifting her eyes from the sweater as he seated himself beside her.

"Sorry to disappoint you," he replied cheerfully. "As Frank remarked
unflatteringly this morning, 'You are far from being a dead one--go and