Thought I'd save a term on it. But that, and training
too hard, did me up. It's a shame, too, for we have a peach of an
eleven!"
"I know, Jack, it is too bad," said Cora, sympathetically.
"Oh, it isn't that I'm actually a non-combatant, Sis, but I've lost
my nerve, and what I have left is frayed to a frazzle. I've just got
to do nothing but look handsome for the next three months."
"It's a good time to look that way," ventured Bess.
"Look how?" asked Jack.
"Handsome. Tell me about the pretty stranger, Cora."
"What's that?" cried Walter, crowding up. "Handsome stranger?
Remember, boys, I saw her first!"
"She means the lace seller," said Belle, languidly.
"Tell you later," Cora promised.
CHAPTER V
INEZ
They were at the autos, standing near the edge of the depot platform
now. The porter had set down the grips of the boys, and had departed
with that touching of the cap, and the expansive smile, which
betokens a fifty-cent tip. They do not touch the cap for a quarter
any more.
"How'll we piece out?" asked Jack, and his tone was listless. "Who
goes with whom?"
His voice was so different from his usual joking, teasing, snapping
tones that Cora looked at him again. Yes, her brother was certainly
ill, though outwardly it showed only in a thinness of the bronzed
cheeks, and a dull, sunken look in the eyes. A desperately tired
look, which comes only from mental weariness.
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