"Now you're saying something," added Allen warmly, while the girls stopped
packing and looked on happily. "Do you remember what we were talking about
that day when we almost--"

"Ran into what we were talking about?" finished Frank with a grin. "You
bet I do."

"Well, what was it?" drawled Grace, after they had waited patiently for
the boys to continue and the latter had smiled aggravatingly to themselves
over their thoughts.

"If it's bad," added Mollie briskly, "we don't want to hear it, for, as
the old lady said that used to come to see Mother regularly once a year,
'I don't care what terrible things people say or think about me, if they
don't tell me about it,' But if it's good--we might stand it."

"Oh, it was good all right," Frank assured her, still smiling over his
thoughts. "We were saying that if we didn't get a furlough so we could go
back to Deepdale--"

"For a certain purpose," suggested Will.

"For a certain purpose," Frank repeated solemnly--"we were afraid we
might have to desert."

"Yes, that would have been sensible," scoffed Mollie. "Get half a dozen
years in prison for yourselves and I'd like to know where your furloughs
would be then."

"And you haven't really told us a single nice thing about ourselves,"