CHAPTER V
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
It was the spring of the year, a time when every normal boy and girlbecomes restless for new scenes, new adventures. The girls at ThreeTowers Hall heard the mysterious call and longed through hot days ofstudy to respond to it.
The teachers felt the restlessness in the air and strove to keep thegirls to their lessons by making them more interesting. But it was of nouse. The girls studied because they had to, not, except in a fewscattered cases, because they wanted to.
One of the exceptions to the rule was Caroline Brant, a natural studentand a serious girl, who had set herself the rather hopeless task ofwatching over Billie Bradley and keeping her out of scrapes. For Billie,with her love of adventure and excitement, was forever getting into somesort of scrape.
But these days it would have taken half a dozen Caroline Brants to havekept Billie in the traces. Billie was as wild as an unbroken colt, andjust as impatient of control. And Laura and Vi were almost as bad.
There was some excuse for the girls. In the first place, the spring termat Three Towers Hall was drawing to a close, and at the end of the springterm came--freedom.
But the thing that set their blood racing was the thought of what was instore for them after they had gained their freedom. Connie Danvers hadgiven the girls an invitation to visit during their vacation her father'sbungalow on Lighthouse Island, a romantic spot off the Maine coast.
The prospect had appealed to the girls even in the dead of winter; butnow, with the sweet scent of damp earth and flowering shrubs in the air,they had all they could do to wait at all.
The chums had written to their parents about spending their vacation onthe island, and the latter had consented on one condition. And thatcondition was that the girls should make a good record for themselves atThree Towers Hall. And it is greatly to be feared that it was only thisunreasonable--to the girls--condition that kept them at their studies atall.
It was Saturday morning, and Billie, all alone in one of the study halls,was finishing her preparation for Monday's classes. She always got rid ofthis task on Saturday morning, so as to have her Saturday afternoon andSunday free. She had never succeeded in winning Laura and Vi over to hermethod, so that on their part there was usually a wild scramble toprepare Monday's lessons on Sunday afternoon.
As Billie, books in hand and a satisfied feeling in her heart, came outof the study room, she very nearly ran into Miss Arbuckle. Miss Arbuckleseemed in a great hurry about something, and the tip of her nose and hereyes were red as though she had been crying.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Billie, for Billie was not at all tactfulwhen any one was in trouble. Her impulse was to jump in and help, whetherone really wanted her help or not. But everybody that knew Billie forgaveher her lack of tact and loved her for the desire to help.
So now Miss Arbuckle, after a moment of hesitation, motioned Billie intothe study room, and, crossing over to one of the windows, stood lookingout, tapping with her fingers on the sill.
"I've lost something, Billie," she said, without looking around. "It maynot seem much to you or to anybody else. But for me--well, I'd ratherhave lost my right hand."
She looked around then, and Billie saw fresh moisture in her eyes.
"What is it?" she asked gently. "Perhaps I--we can help you find it."
"I wish you could," said Miss Arbuckle, with a little sigh. "But thatwould be too good to be true. It was only an old family album, Billie.But there were pictures in it that I prize above everything I own. Oh,well," she gave a little shrug of her shoulders as if to end the matter."I'll get over it. I've had to get over worse things. But," she smiledand patted Billie's shoulder fondly, "I didn't mean to burden your youngshoulders with my troubles. Just run along and forget all about it."
Billie did run along, but she most certainly did not "forget all aboutit."
"Funny thing to get so upset about," she said to herself, as she slowlyclimbed the steps to her dormitory. "A picture album! I don't believe I'dever get my nose and eyes all red over one. Just the same, I'd like tofind it and give it back to her. Good Miss Arbuckle! After the DillPickles, she seems like an angel."
She was still smiling over the thought of what had happened to the DillPickles when she opened the door of the dormitory and came upon herchums.
Laura and Vi and a dark-haired, pink-cheeked girl were sitting on one ofthe beds in one corner of the dormitory, alternately talking and gazingdreamily out of the window to Lake Molata, where it gleamed and shimmeredin the morning sunlight at the end of a sloping lawn.
The dark-haired, pink-cheeked girl was Rose Belser. Rose Belser, beingjealous of Billie's immense popularity at Three Towers Hall the termbefore, had done her best to get the new girl into trouble, only to bewon over to Billie's side in the end. Now she was as firm a friend ofBillie's as any girl in Three Towers Hall.
"Well!" was Laura's greeting as Billie sauntered toward them. "Methinks'tis time you arrived, sweet damsel. Goodness!" she added, dropping herlazy tone and sitting up with a bounce, "I don't see why you have to goand spoil the whole morning with your beastly old studying. Think of thefun we could have had."
"Well, but think of the fun we're going to have this afternoon," Billieflung back airily, stopping before the mirror to tuck some wisps of hairinto place, while the girls, even Rose, who was as pretty as a pictureherself, watched her admiringly. "It's almost lunch time."
"You don't have to tell us that," said Vi in an aggrieved tone. "Haven'twe been waiting for you all morning?"
"Oh, come on," said Billie, as the lunch gong sounded invitingly throughthe hall. "Maybe when you've had something to eat you'll feel better.Feed the beast----"
"Say, she's calling us names again," cried Laura, making a dive forBillie. But Billie was already flying down the steps two at a time, andwhen Billie once got a head start, no one, at least no one in ThreeTowers Hall, had a chance of catching up with her.
It seemed to be Billie's day for bumping into people--for at the foot ofthe stairs she had to clutch the banister to keep from colliding withMiss Walters, the beautiful and much loved head of the school.
At Billie's sudden appearance the latter seemed inclined to be alarmed,then her eyes twinkled, and as she looked at Billie she chuckled, yes,actually chuckled.
"Beatrice Bradley," she said, with a shake of her head as she passed on,"I've done my best with you, but it's of no use. You're utterlyincorrigible."
Billie looked thoughtful as she seated herself at the table, and a momentlater, under cover of the general conversation, she leaned over andwhispered to Laura.
"Miss Walters said something funny to me," she confided. "I'm not quitesure yet whether she was calling me names or not."
"What did she say?" asked Laura, looking interested.
"She said I was incorrigible," Billie whispered back.
"Incorrigible," there was a frown on Laura's forehead, then it suddenlycleared and she smiled beamingly.
"Why yes, don't you remember?" she said. "We had it in English class theother day. Incorrigible means wicked, you know--bad. You can't reform'em, you know--incorrigibles." The last word was mumbled through amouthful of soup.
"Can't reform 'em!" Billie repeated in dismay. "Goodness, do you supposethat's what she really thinks of me?"
"I don't see why she shouldn't," Laura said wickedly, and Billie wouldsurely have thrown something at her if Miss Arbuckle's eye had nothappened at that moment to turn in her direction.
Miss Arbuckle's eye brought to Billie's mind the teacher's trouble, andshe confided it in a low tone to Laura.
"Humph," commented Laura, her mind only on the fun they were going tohave that afternoon, "I'm sorry, of course, but I don't believe any oldalbum would make me shed tears."
"Don't be so sure of that, Laura."
"What? Cry over an old album?" and Laura looked her astonishment.
"But suppose the album had in it th
e pictures of those you loved verydearly--pictures perhaps of those that were dead and gone and picturesthat you couldn't replace?"
"Oh, well--I suppose that would be different. Did she say anything aboutthe people?"
"She didn't go into details, but she said they were pictures she prizedabove anything."
"Oh, perhaps then that would make a difference."
"I hope she gets the album back," said Billie seriously.
Then Laura promptly forgot all about both Miss Arbuckle and the album.
A little while later the girls swung joyfully out upon the road, boundfor town and shopping and perhaps some ice cream and--oh, just a jollygood time of the kind girls know so well how to have, especially in thespring of the year.
Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island; Or, The Mystery of the Wreck Page 5