Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower. Wheeler Janet D.

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СКАЧАТЬ on the bed between Connie and the bedpost, and as Rose Belser came in at that moment the girls motioned her to join them.

      “What’s up?” asked Rose, flinging off her cap and scarf as she came. “Billie been getting into mischief again? Or is it only trouble this time?”

      “Trouble, I guess,” said Billie, and then she told them the astonishing tale of what had happened that afternoon. But instead of being interested as she had expected them to be, the girls actually seemed disappointed.

      “Well, was that all you had to tell us?” asked Connie, when she had finished. “I’m surprised at you, Billie. I thought you had really done something exciting.”

      “Yes,” added Rose, in her aggravating little drawl, as she rose to get ready for dinner, “it was awfully good of you to rescue those three annoying little brats and return them to their distracted mother and all that. But I don’t see anything dreadfully hair-raising about it.”

      Rose read books that were too old for her and ran with girls who were too old for her and so she herself contrived to seem much older than she was. And sometimes Billie found this manner extremely irritating, in spite of the fact that she and Rose were friends – now.

      “I suppose it doesn’t seem very exciting to you,” she said, as she pulled off her cap and unwound the muffler from about her neck. “But I presume you would be a little bit more interested if it was youwho didn’t have enough to eat.”

      “Don’t be mad at us, Billie,” Connie begged, patting Billie’s hand soothingly. “Of course we all feel sorry for the poor little kiddies and their mother and we want to help them all we can. But you can’t blame us for being disappointed when you said you had had an adventure.”

      “I wonder if you would call it an adventure,” mused Billie, more to herself than to them, “if one of us should find that stolen invention and claim the twenty thousand dollars reward for it!”

      Her classmates stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

      “Wh – what did you say?” demanded Connie.

      “You heard me,” said Billie, with a grin.

      “But, Billie, you know that’s absurd,” said Rose, in her best drawl. “How could we possibly hope to find a thing that has been missing for a couple of years?”

      “It may be absurd,” said Billie good-naturedly, pulling the ribbon from her curls and brushing them vigorously. “I think it sounds foolish myself. But while there’s life, there’s hope. Hand me that comb, will you, Vi?”

      A few minutes later the big gong sounded through the halls, announcing gratefully to the hungry girls that dinner was ready. And now that the vinegary Misses Dill had gone, delight reigned supreme in the dining hall.

      The girls had all they could possibly eat of good satisfying food and they were allowed to chatter as much as they would as long as they did not become too noisy.

      But although they had chicken for dinner and cranberry sauce and creamed cauliflower, things all of which she especially liked, Billie enjoyed it less than any meal she had ever eaten.

      Again and again before her eyes arose the reproachful images of the three little Haddons, undersized, undernourished, half-starved.

      She could hardly wait until dessert had been served, and then, with a murmured word to Laura and Vi, she excused herself from the table and went in search of Miss Walters.

      She found that lady in the act of drinking her after-dinner coffee in the privacy of her own little domain.

      Miss Walters had a suite of three rooms all to herself: a bedroom, a dressing-room and a sitting-room, and all three of the rooms were fitted up in a manner that befitted a queen.

      The sitting-room was done in mahogany and blue. An exquisite Persian rug of dull blue covered the floor and the rich mahogany furniture was all upholstered in blue velour. The curtain draperies were all of this same rich blue over cream-colored lace. In the center of the room was a huge mahogany library table upon which stood a handsome reading lamp with a blue silk shade.

      Billie, who had never been in this sanctum before and who had seen Miss Walters only in her office, was amazed when, in reply to her timid knock, the principal invited her to enter.

      For a moment she stood dumbly staring, while Miss Walters set down her cup and looked up with a smile. The smile changed to a look of surprise and then to annoyance as the principal saw who the intruder was.

      “It must be something very important to bring you here at this hour, Beatrice,” said Miss Walters, while poor Billie began to wish herself back in the security of dormitory C. She was too frightened to explain her presence, and yet she knew that Miss Walters expected an explanation. “What is it you wish?” asked the latter, impatiently.

      “I – I’m sorry,” said Billie at last, backing away toward the door. “I shouldn’t have come – but I thought – that is, I thought it was important.” She was half through the door by this time, and Miss Walters, her annoyance changing to amusement, took pity on her.

      “What was important?” she asked, adding, as Billie still continued to back away: “Come in here, Billie Bradley, and shut that door. There’s a draft in the hall.”

      Relieved at the use of the familiar name Billie, the girl obeyed, shutting the door softly, then turned imploringly to the teacher.

      “Sit down,” commanded the latter, pointing to one of the blue velour armchairs near by. “Now tell me the ‘important thing’ you came about while I finish my coffee.”

      Billie made poor work of her story at first, for she was still wondering how she had ever had the courage to approach Miss Walters in the privacy of her sanctum sanctorum, but as she went on she became less self-conscious and was encouraged by Miss Walters’ unfeigned interest.

      And when, at the end of the recital, Miss Walters reached over and patted her hand and told her she had been quite right in coming to her as she had, Billie was in the seventh heaven of delight.

      “With poverty behind them, fortune and comfort ahead, and then again, desolation!” Miss Walters mused, talking more to herself than Billie. “How the human mind can stand up under the strain is a mystery to me. Poor, starving little mites and pitiful, noble mother, fighting for her young with the only weapons she has. Lucky mother to have come to the notice of a girl like you, Billie Bradley,” she added, turning upon Billie so warm and bright a smile that the girl’s heart swelled with pride and adoration.

      “Then you will let us help the Haddons?” she asked breathlessly.

      “More than that,” smiled Miss Walters. “I willhelp you to help them. I think it is too late to follow out your plan of taking them something to-night.” But she added as she saw Billie’s bright face fall: “But we will pack a basket full to the brim with good things early to-morrow morning and you and Laura and Violet may take them to the cottage after breakfast. Only, you must walk around the lake. I could not take the chance of your skating after what happened this afternoon.”

      Billie stammered out some incoherent words of thanks, Miss Walters patted her cheek, and in another moment she found herself standing outside in the hall in a sort of happy daze.

      A girl passed her, eyed her curiously, went on a few steps and then came back. It was Eliza Dilks.

      “In СКАЧАТЬ