before the evening meal. Nancy talked with her parents every Sunday over long-distance telephone and had letters from them and friends back home almost every day. Letters had never meant so much to her in all her life. She could now appreciate how important they were to Tommy and the other boys out there.

That evening Nancy was thrilled to find a letter from Tommy, which had been sent on from home. “One from the South Pacific!” she cried, waving the letter at Mabel, who was just opening her own box.

“And I have one from my Jake!” exclaimed Mabel. “What a red-letter day for the long and short of our unit!”

The girls moved out of the milling crowd at the mail boxes and opened their letters near a window.

Nancy stopped in the midst of her reading to tell Mabel joyfully, “He has only a few more missions to fly and then he’ll be coming home. Now wouldn’t that be something if I got sent out there while he comes back!”

“Surely fate wouldn’t play you such a mean trick as that, Nancy!”

“Is your sweetie all right?” asked Nancy.

“He is now, but the poor chap’s been in the hospital. He didn’t say what for. Isn’t that just like a man?”

“Better watch out. He may fall for some of those nurses.”

“If he’s that fickle I’d rather know it now,” Mabel said with a toss of her head. “But really I’m not uneasy. Jake’s sold on my red head. There aren’t so many redheads, you know.”

“He’d better not go to Turkey then. They tell me there’re plenty of red-headed dames there,” put in one of the nurses near by, who had overheard their conversation.

Nancy finished her letters and while waiting for Mabel she noticed Tini standing not far from them. There was a scowl on her face as she impatiently tapped her fingers on the window ledge. A slit envelope and an open letter were in her hands. Nancy couldn’t help noticing the return address on the envelope, “Hotel Carlton.”

“Bad news?” asked Nancy.

“My good-looking date had to leave unexpectedly,” Tini replied. “Makes me sick!”

“You’ve been lucky to have him here at all,” Nancy said. “Most of us have been dateless for three weeks.”

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