Mollie sighed and permitted the liberty with an air of great resignation.

In the meanwhile, Allen was whispering into Betty’s almost reluctant little ear.

“Did you really mean what you said about its being glorious to give yourself for a great cause?” he asked softly.

“Why, I—­g-guess so,” she stammered, taken off her guard.  “Why?”

“Oh, just because,” he answered vaguely, watching the elusive little dimple at the corner of her mouth, “I might want to remind you of it—­some day.”

CHAPTER X

ALARMING SYMPTOMS

The girls awoke one morning several days later—­days of routine duty at the Hostess House—­with the delightful sensation of something good impending.  Crowded as they were in the one big room for Mrs. Sanderson’s accommodation, they had formed the habit of talking over their prospective fun before the actual work and hurry and bustle of the day began.

So it was this morning, just after the sun had streamed in through the two big east windows and settled on the tip of Betty’s upturned little nose in a most provocative manner.

Sleepily she rubbed a hand across her face, then sneezed.

“Goodness, she’s got the ’flu’!” cried Grace in alarm, as she sat up in bed, jerking the covers from her now fully aroused bedfellow.  “Amy!  Mollie!  Get me a gas mask, somebody!”

“I think it’s poor Betty that needs the gas mask,” retorted Mollie dryly.  “I never heard you talk so much this early in the morning since the first day of our acquaintance, Grace.  What happened to wake you up?”

Whereupon Betty sneezed again, and Grace jumped about a foot in the bed.

“Please take her away, somebody,” she wailed plaintively, while Betty regarded her out of wide and sleep-brilliant eyes.  “I heard a doctor say the other day that at the second sneeze it was time to go to the hospital.”

“Well, run along,” twinkled Betty, adding, with a speculative look:  “If you’ll wait just about two minutes, I think I can give you another one.”

But Grace waited to hear no more.  With a bound she was out of the bed and half-way across the room.

“Goodness!” remarked quiet Amy, with a laugh, “I should think it would be almost worth while having the ‘flu,’ Betty, just to see Gracie move like that.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Betty, rubbing the offending little nose ruefully.  “It’s easy to talk when it’s some one else who’s got it.  Nobody seems to have any sympathy for me at all.”

“We would, dear,” cried Mollie, slipping out of her own bed and taking Grace’s place beside Betty on the sun-flooded cot, “only you don’t really look as though you were dying of anything, you know—­especially influenza.  Betty dear,” she added, with an impulsive little hug, “you do look so pretty!”

“Now she does want a quarter,” remarked Grace skeptically, as she took the place Mollie had vacated.  “Don’t you believe her, Betty Nelson.  It’s too early in the morning to see straight anyway.”