"Please sit down and dry out a little," said the lady, indicating a grate fire which had evidently only recently been lighted on account of the chill in the air. "I'm glad I had the fire made. I must have known," she added with a gracious smile, "that you were coming to-night." Then she excused herself, and the girls held out eager hands to the fire. "This is bliss," sighed Amy. "Well, this is some contrast to about five minutes ago," chuckled Grace. "I thought we were in for a night in the mud at least." "I'll never say we aren't lucky again," agreed Betty, leaning an arm on the mantel and getting her wet skirt as close to the fire as she could. "We were just wondering," she added, addressing Mrs. Ford, "whether, if Mollie's car got stuck, you would rather have Grace and me struggle on to Bensington and get some help or stay and keep you company. Although," she added ruefully, "if we couldn't pull through that mud, I don't know what we could find in Bensington to do it." "Probably the only gasoline vehicles they have in the place are jitneys," agreed Mollie, with a chuckle. "I wonder," Amy broke in, apropos of nothing, "who our charming hostess is. She seems so lovely. It seems odd to meet a person like her and a house like this out in the wilderness." "Yes, one does rather expect a farmer's wife and a rambling old farmhouse so far out in the country," agreed Mrs. Ford. "Well, maybe her husband is a scientific farmer," suggested Mollie, adding wickedly as she turned a merry eye on Grace: "The kind Roy once said he'd like to be. Remember, Grace?" "Yes, I remember," Grace answered in a tone that indicated the memory was not a pleasant one. "And I told him he had better drop that idea in a hurry if he expected me--I mean--any girl--" she floundered, while they laughed mockingly at her, "to have anything to do with him," she finished rather weakly, while the girls giggled exasperatingly. "Well, I don't know," remarked Betty, in an altruistic effort to pour oil upon the troubled waters, "that I would particularly mind marrying a scientific farmer if they all have houses like this and acres of ground with orchards and cows and chickens--" "And potato bugs," finished Grace, while the girls laughed merrily. "Well," remarked Mollie, with a desperate gleam in her eye, "I'd marry just about anybody who would give me a square meal." "Goodness," remarked Betty, twinkling, "it's mighty lucky for Frank that there aren't any young men of marriageable age on the horizon just now." The next moment she regretted her innocent little speech, for she could see that the mention of the boys had brought more vividly to Grace and Mrs. Ford and Amy the thought of Will--dear, bright, merry Will--lying wounded in some far-away hospital, how badly wounded they could not know, and dared not think.