"Betty, what are you doing awake so early?" queried Grace petulantly. "If you can't sleep you might lie still, and let me." "Have some candy, Gracie," Betty invited, pulling the empty candy box from the table beside the bed, and handing it to her friend. "It may help your disposition." "Goodness, what it is to have a reputation!" said Grace plaintively. "People think they can insult and slight me, and then make it all up by handing me a bon-bon!" "Not guilty," laughed Betty merrily. "If you'll look a little closer, you'll see there is not a bit of candy in that box! No, don't glare at me like that, Gracie, dear. The only way you could frighten me, would be by getting up early. Then I'd know there was something wrong." "So would I," said Grace, stifling a yawn. "I'm altogether too good-natured to frighten anybody--even myself." "Well, you can stay there all day if you want to," said Betty, inserting two determined little feet into two pretty bedroom slippers, and running across to the open window, "but I wouldn't if I were you. It's too wonderful a day in the first place, and in the second, I can imagine pleasanter things than staying alone on this island over night." "Oh, that's so!" cried Grace, sitting up and staring at Betty. "I forgot we were going home to-day. Oh, dear, now I will have to get up." "How awful," mocked Mollie, who had been watching them for some time from the bed in the alcove. "It's an outrage, having to get up in the morning. I think we should have been made so we could sleep all the time." "Just my idea," Grace was beginning, unmoved, when Mrs. Irving's voice sounded at the door. "Seven o'clock," she announced cheerily. "And you know we decided to get an early start." For the next hour all was hurry and excitement while four girlish tongues clattered unceasingly. "Have you fully decided to join the Red Cross, Betty?" queried Amy. "Why, of course. Haven't you?" asked the Little Captain, slipping on the skirt to her pretty traveling suit and fastening it deftly. "I'm going to make dozens and dozens of scarfs, sweaters and socks. The boys are giving up everything for us, and I'm sure the least we can do is, keep them warm." "Oh, I can't wait to begin," cried Mollie. "I'm so excited all the time about the war and everything, I can't sit still--" "You've got to, if you're going to knit," grumbled Grace. "And you can't eat candy, either, Mollie Billette." "Oh, look who's talking," crowed Mollie. "If that's true, and the poor soldiers had to depend upon you to keep them warm, I'd feel sorry for them, that's all." "Oh, I don't know," defended Betty, putting an arm about Grace, and starting for the door. "Grace believes in quality more than quantity. She may not knit as much as the rest of us, but she does it twice as well." Grace laughed and hugged her friend as they ran down the stairs together. "That's worth my lavallière, Betty," she said. "If Adolph Hensler hadn't gotten it first, I'd will it to you!"