the other girls they all walked down the street together while Billie launched into the wonderful tale of her good fortune.

"Over four thousand dollars!" cried the teacher when Billie stopped for lack of breath. "Why, Billie, isn't that marvelous? It sounds like a story. What," she added, smiling down into the eager face, "do you intend to do with all that wealth?"

"Buy a statue for you, first of all," said Billie promptly, and Miss Beggs flushed.

"I had forgotten all about that statue," she said. "I told you it had already been broken, anyway."

"I know you did. But since you had mended it so it looked all right, it was almost as good as new, wasn't it? You mustn't say 'no,'" she added quickly, as she saw Miss Beggs was about to interrupt, "for it won't do the slightest bit of good. I'm not going to buy anything for myself till I replace that statue."

Miss Beggs gave a little helpless shrug of her shoulders.

"I can see that nobody has a chance to change your mind, Billie Bradley, when it's once made up," she said with a smile, then added as the girls turned toward home: "I know what I shall name my new statue. Her name shall be 'Billie.'"

"She's lovely, isn't she?" asked Violet, referring to Miss Beggs. "I wish she were going to be one of the instructors at Three Towers."

"I hope they're nice, for it's awful to live with people who aren't," sighed Laura.

"Well, we won't know very much about them till we get there."

"And then it may be too late," put in Violet dolefully.

"But Daddy says," Billie went on, "that Miss Walters, the head of the school, is just splendid."

"Well, that ought to help some," said Laura, adding with a quick change of tone that made the girls look up suddenly: "There's Amanda Peabody. Can't we hide or something?"

"I don't see where, and, besides, she won't bite you," said Billie.

Amanda Peabody was probably the most unpopular girl in North Bend. The girls disliked her as real girls always dislike a sneak and tattle-tale. Amanda was always spying around, minding everybody's business but her own, and making a general nuisance of herself.

And because Billie was so popular, Amanda seemed to have an especial grudge against her and was always trying to get her into trouble.

As Amanda came toward them on this beautiful afternoon she seemed more unpleasant than usual and there was a mean little smile at the corners of her thin-lipped mouth.

"Hello!" she accosted the girls, then turned to Billie with a more pronounced grin. "I've heard all about the money you found in that awful old house. You must feel like a regular Captain Kidd, don't you?"

"Since I never was sure how Captain Kidd felt, I don't know," said Billie coolly, although she could feel the blood slowly mounting into her face. Oh, if she could only do what she wanted to, Amanda Peabody wouldn't be smiling very long!

The girls made as if to go on, but with characteristic ill breeding, Amanda planted herself directly in front of Billie, still with that maddening grin on her face.

"I suppose now you'll be going to Three Towers Hall and your brother to Boxton Academy."

Billie did not say anything—she just looked. But that look must have been enough, for suddenly with a flirt of her dress and a toss of her head and an insolent look Amanda flung past them.

"Just the same you needn't think you're the only pebble on the beach," she called back. "I'm going to Three Towers, too."

For a minute the chums could not believe their ears. Then they looked at each other with horror written on their faces.

"Did you hear what I heard?" gasped Billie, when she could find her voice.

"Yes, I heard," said Laura faintly. "Girls, do you think she could have been telling the truth?"

"I don't see why she should want to fib about it," said Vi, feeling rather bewildered. "She'd know we would soon find it out."

"Oh, but it's too awful!" burst out Billie suddenly. "Why, girls, it's apt to spoil our whole year! Just think of having that sneak around, prying into all our affairs and reporting every little thing we do."

"I guess the only way out of that is not to do anything she can report," said Violet ruefully, and Laura caught her up quickly.

"There you go taking all the fun out of it before we start," she said, and in spite of their consternation the girls had to laugh.

"Why, you actually sound as if you intended to break the rules," said Billie, drolly adding, with a prim little pucker of her mouth: "Laura, I'm surprised at you."

"Listen to the good little girl talking," gibed Laura. "I never knew you to get into any mischief, Billie,—oh, no!"

"Well, I won't quarrel with you about it," said Billie, calmly adding with a little chuckle: "If we try to have any midnight feast at Three Towers with sweet Amanda wandering round loose we will have to appoint a guard to stand outside the door and warn us."

"I suppose that will be my job," said Violet plaintively. "It will be lots of fun standing out in a drafty hall looking for Amanda while you girls are having a feast."

"No, we'll fix it so it will be perfectly fair," said Billie soothingly. "We'll draw lots or something."

"But I don't know what good a guard would do anyway," said Laura dolefully. "There's something creepy about the way Amanda finds out things. You think she's miles away and the next day she tells you more about what you did than you know yourself."

"Maybe she has an accomplice," said Billie dramatically, and the girls giggled.

"Anybody'd think Amanda was a criminal or something," said Laura, but Billie shook her head decidedly.

"Uh-uh," she said. "I might like a good honest criminal but I'll be jiggered—scuse me, ladies—if I can like Amanda Peabody! She's too sly!"

CHAPTER VI

OFF FOR THREE TOWERS HALL

It was just two weeks to the time when the girls were to leave for Three Towers Hall.

It seemed to them they would never get done all the things that they had to do, and they sewed and packed and planned until it seemed they must stop because of sheer exhaustion.

However, their parents sent them to bed early—and not without difficulty was this feat accomplished—on the night before the great day, and the morning found them refreshed and wildly eager for this new adventure.

As, in her own little room, Billie regarded her flushed reflection in the mirror it seemed impossible to make herself realize that she was really going to Three Towers Hall at last—Three Towers which had been the height of her ambition from the time she had entered the grammar school.

She was beginning to feel quite grown up—which was perhaps the reason she regarded her new and very pretty brown hat with a critical eye and smoothed down her new and very pretty brown dress with hands that trembled with excitement.

"Well, I think I'm all ready now," she said at last, and gave a little, half-frightened glance around the familiar room. She wondered how it would seem to sleep in a strange place with no mother or father near by.

Then she shook herself impatiently and picked up her bag—for was she not grown-up now?

However, she did not feel very grown-up when a moment later she met her mother in the hall and saw traces of tears on her face. For Mother had no new scenes to go to and the departure of her two noisy children would leave the house strangely quiet and subdued.

Billie flung herself upon her mother and hugged her tight.

"Mumsey, you've been crying!" she said to her accusingly. "And you know you mustn't."

Then to her great surprise she felt a peculiar lump in her own throat, and two tears forced themselves to her eyes.

She had never dreamt of crying, and for the first time she realized that leaving one's mother—even for Three Towers—was not easy, after all!

But it was Mrs. Bradley who came to the rescue