"If something doesn't happen pretty soon," put in Amy, with another deep sigh, "I'll just naturally pass away. I wonder," she added, looking really interested in the subject, "if anybody ever did die of the blues." "I don't believe so--but there's always hope," said Betty dryly, adding with sudden spirit; "Now look here, girls, something's got to be done about this. We really will make ourselves sick if we don't try to look on the hopeful side of things. It won't do anybody, least of all, ourselves, any good to sit here and mope all day. We've just got to fight against depression and cheer up." "That's all very well for you, Betty," Amy voiced almost the same sentiment as Grace had only a few moments ago, "but you are the only one of us who hasn't been hurt personally. Suppose it were Allen. Would you feel the same way then--about cheering up and taking it bravely?" Betty flushed angrily, at the same time feeling a wild desire to go away and cry. "I hope I would," she said steadily. "And if I didn't, I would surely feel ashamed of myself. It isn't," she paused at the door and looked back at them, "as though Will or the twins were dead. We have hope in both cases, so I don't see any use of giving up. You talk," she choked back a sob, "as though I didn't sympathize, as if I were an outsider just because nothing has happened to--Allen--yet--" her voice choked in a real sob this time and she fled from the room. The girls gazed after her unhappily. "Did you ever!" gasped Mollie. "I didn't mean to make her feel bad. Betty, of all people!" said Amy, conscience stricken. "And of course she's right about our trying to cheer up. Only, I don't want to, someway." "Betty's a darling," said Mollie thoughtfully. "But of course she can't quite realize how badly we feel. If it were her little brother and sister, now--" And so gradually Betty came to feel herself more or less of an outsider with these girls who were so close to her. And it was all because they misunderstood her effort to cheer them up and thought she could not feel for them because nothing terrible had happened to her yet. "I'll show them," she told herself fiercely, "if anything should happen to Allen--" But she shivered and turned away shudderingly from the thought. Allen--if only she could see him for five minutes--just five minutes-- Some way the days dragged through until a week passed, then part of another. Still there had been no clue to the whereabouts of the twins, nor any further news of Will. "And this is the wonderful vacation we planned!" said Grace with a wry smile, breaking one of the long silences that had become common with the Outdoor Girls these days. They were, as usual, sitting on the sand and trying to occupy their minds with sewing or reading, yet always with an eye to the road in readiness to rush to their red-headed combination of delivery boy and postman whenever he saw fit to put in an appearance.