“Look at all these letters in my morning’s mail! And nearly every one an invitation to a gathering of some sort, connected with Our Boys. Dinners and evening parties and little dances, all for the Khaki and the Blue! Red Cross Benefits, private charities and any number of War Relief meetings! Don’t think I’m a heartless wretch, Patsy, but I do love the everlasting gadding about, and meeting people and being in the excitement of it all!”
“Good for you, Bumble,” said Nan, coming in, “having heard your views, I’ll invite you to help me with a small and early bazaar I’m arranging for a Valentine fête.”
“Of course I’ll do all I can, Nan. Tell me more. When is it to be?”
“On the twelfth; we want to sell valentines to send to the soldiers in camp, and incidentally, have a good time, and, moreover, make a little money for my committee.”
“Where you going to have it?” asked Patty, looking up from her desk, where she was writing letters.
“Why, here,” said Nan. “You needn’t do much, Pattikins, you’ve so many irons in the fire; Bumble and I will run this show.”
“Good for you! I have about all I can manage on a paltry twenty-four hours a day. But I’ll buy a valentine of you to send to my own particular Soldier Boy. Oh, Nan, isn’t he the dearest thing! Just look at this new picture of him! Did anybody _ever_ look so well in a uniform?”
“He is sure great!” exclaimed Bumble, taking the picture; “I don’t wonder you rave over him, Patty.”
“Nor I,” Nan agreed. “He’s so big, yet so well-proportioned that he doesn’t look _too_ big.”
“Oh, _thank_ you, Nan! I dunno what I’d do if he were _too_ big!” Patty showed mock alarm at the thought. “You see, the bigger he is the smaller I seem, but I’m trying to emulate Bumble, and get a little more weighty. It’s hard, though, with the food conservation to be looked after, and the sweetless days here and there——”
“_You_ don’t have any sweetless days, if you read those long letters you get,” put in Helen.
“And pray, how do _you_ know as to their sweetness?”
“Oh, I’m a mind reader, and when I see you peruse a letter, and fairly lap it up, like a cat, and then sit looking like the cat who ate the canary, I don’t have to be a detective to deduce that the letter was a sweet one!”