“You’re in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie,” declared Helen Cameron with some scorn. “Is that the way a diamond ring affects all engaged girls?” “Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!” groaned the girl who had been known at boarding school as “Heavy Stone,” and seldom by any other name among her mates. “And you still continue to eat!” ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie’s reach. “Those are not real eats,” complained the girl with the diamond ring. “A million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds.” “Listen to her!” gasped Helen. “If Major Henri Marchand could hear her now!” “He is a full colonel, I’d have you know,” declared Jennie Stone. “And in charge of his section. In _our_ army it is the Intelligence Department—Secret Service.” “That is what Tom calls the ‘Camouflage Bureau.’ _Colonel_ Marchand has a nice, sitting-down job,” scoffed Helen. “Colonel Marchand,” said Ruth Fielding, gravely, “has been through the enemy’s lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his courage with justice, Jennie.” “_You_ ought to know!” pouted the plumper girl. “You and my colonel have tramped all over the French front together.” “Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to,” laughed Ruth. “And just think,” cried Helen, “of her leaving us here in this hospital, Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours——” “Tut, tut!” said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her. “Don’t be jealous, Helen.” “It’s not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy’s friend with whom you went over to the Germans,” declared Helen, tossing her head. “And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand—_that was_! ‘Colonel,’ I should say,” said Ruth. “Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all during these past few months.” “During the past few years,” said the plump girl sepulchrally. “Talking about your cracked and chipped china,” and she held up her empty cup to look through it. “_I_ remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie. Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we treated you, Ruthie?” “Oh, _don’t_!” exclaimed Helen. “I treated my Ruthie mean in those days, too—sometimes.” “Goodness!” drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl. “Don’t bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give you a toast. You must drink your cup to it—and to the very dregs!”