affect the world, and you can easily see now that it is. Ought we to simply sit down and let it slide gaily along?"
"But what on earth can _we_ do about it?" I demanded. "Just remember that we're nothing but three young girls, one not even out of public school, and that not a soul on earth would believe us if we were to make such fools of ourselves as to tell what, after all, we only suspect."
"History has sometimes been in the hands of as young people as ourselves," she remarked. I'm sure I don't know where the Imp gets all her information, and yet somehow I'm bound to believe her. _I_ couldn't think of a single case where history had been in the hands of any one of our age, but I didn't dare say so, because she would probably have promptly pointed out half a dozen cases. So I said nothing.
"I haven't made up my mind what we ought to do," she went on, "but I'm sure _something_ must be done, and pretty soon, too!"
"Suppose we begin by telling Father," I suggested. "He has a pretty level head about most things."
"Pooh!" she scoffed. "He'd just laugh his head off at us, and tell us to run away and play and forget all about it. You know Father doesn't take much stock in anything that isn't agriculture." This was quite true, and we saw at once that the Imp had the right of it.
"No, don't speak to any one yet," she added. "We'll keep the secret a while longer, till I've thought out a better plan."

This morning another queer thing happened. As there was no school, we were all sitting on the veranda discussing the startling news in the paper, the assassination of the Archduke of Austria, which happened yesterday. Just then Louis came over to ask us to go out in the launch.
"What do you think of the news?" he asked.
We said it was awful, and that we were wondering what would happen next.
"You ought to have seen Monsieur when he read it," went on Louis, laughing at the recollection. "He got up, crumpled the paper into a ball, and stormed about the place as if he were having a fit. I asked him why he was so excited about it, and he immediately began to reel off a lot about the 'balance of power' in Europe,--how it would be upset and what Austria would be likely to do, where Russia would object and how France might be affected, and a whole lot more that I couldn't begin to understand. He's a great student of international politics, he says, and this news seemed to upset him a lot. I'm sure I can't see why."
The Imp poked me so hard in the ribs that I almost shrieked aloud, but I saw at once what she must be thinking. _Are_ Monsieur's plans upset by this, I wonder? Or are we just imagining trouble where there is none? I'm sure I don't know. But of one thing I'm certain. I never realized how strange it would feel to 

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