Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall.

by Janet D. Wheeler.

CHAPTER I

ALMOST A FORTUNE

"Oh, Dad, I can't believe it's true!"

In the rather dim light of the gloomy old room the boys and girls looked queer--almost ghostly. They were gathered about a shabby old trunk, and beside this trunk a man was kneeling. As Billie Bradley spoke, the man, who was her father, rose to his feet and thoughtfully brushed the dust from his clothes. Then he stood looking down at the hundreds and hundreds of postage stamps and old coins that filled the queer old trunk.

"Is it really true, Dad?" Billie continued, shaking her father's arm impatiently while the other young folks looked eagerly up at him.

Mr. Bradley nodded slowly.

"Yes, you really have made a find this time, Billie," he said. "Of course I'm not an expert, but I'm sure the coins in that old trunk are worth three thousand dollars, and the postage stamps ought to bring at least two thousand more----"

"At least two thousand more!" broke in Chet Bradley, excitedly. "Does that mean that Billie may get more for the postage stamps?"

"I shouldn't wonder," replied Mr. Bradley, nodding his head. "However,"

he added, smiling round at the girls and boys, "you'd better not count on anything over five thousand."

"But five thousand dollars!" interrupted Laura Jordon, in an awed voice.

"Just think of it, Billie! And because your Aunt Beatrice left you this house and everything in it, every last cent of that five thousand belongs to you."

"Yes," said Teddy Jordon, turning to Billie with a chuckle. "I suppose you won't look at any of us now you've got this money. How does it feel, Billie?"

"I--I don't know, yet," stammered Billie, still staring at the wonderful trunk. "You'll just have to give me time to get used to it, that's all."

As those readers who have read the first book of this series, ent.i.tled "Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance," will probably have gathered, the girls, Billie Bradley, Laura Jordon and Violet Farrington, and their boy relatives and chums, Chet Bradley, Ferd Stowing and Teddy Jordon, were still at the old homestead at Cherry Corners where so many weird and mysterious experiences had befallen them.

For the benefit of those who are meeting the girls and boys for the first time, what had happened up to the time of this story will be sketched over briefly.

The young folks had grown up in North Bend, a town of perhaps twenty thousand people, and about forty miles by rail from New York City. The girls had seen the great metropolis several times, though their visits had been all too short to satisfy their eager curiosity.

Billie Bradley was called the most popular girl in North Bend, and, indeed, after one had been with Billie five minutes, one would never again wonder where she got the t.i.tle.

Whether it was her sparkling brown eyes with the imp of mischief always lurking in them, or her merry laugh that made every one want to laugh with her, or the adventurous spirit that made her eager to embark on any kind of lark, it would be hard to tell--perhaps her popularity arose from a combination of all of these. But the fact remains that everybody loved her and she had not an enemy, except, perhaps, Amanda Peabody--but more of _her_ later!

Then there was Laura Jordon, Billie's best chum, blue-eyed and golden-haired, who, despite the fact that her father was very wealthy and owned the thriving jewelry factory in North Bend, was not the slightest bit spoiled or conceited. She adored Billie, and although the two would sometimes enter into rather heated discussions, it was usually Laura who gave in to Billie in the end.

The last of the trio, but decidedly not the least, was Violet Farrington, who, tall and dark and less hasty and impetuous than the other two, often found the doubtfully blessed office of peacemaker thrust upon her. And though her slowness and tendency to hang back sometimes exasperated her chums, they nevertheless were very fond of her--and showed it.

Chetwood Bradley, known as Chet to his friends, was Billie's brother--and very proud of it. He was a splendid, fine looking, rather thoughtful boy whom everybody liked.

Ferd Stowing was a comical, jolly, all-around good fellow, who, though he was not related to any of the girls, had been drawn into the group through his friendship for the boys, Chet and Teddy.

And--Teddy! Teddy, who was the handsomest and gayest of all the boys, had been Billie's friend and playmate ever since they could remember.

Either of them would have felt lost without the friendship of the other.

Teddy was Laura's brother and had starred in almost all the sports in which the lads of North Bend had taken part--a fact which did not make Billie like him any the less.

Just the summer before this story opens, Billie, going back with Violet and Laura to the grammar school from which they had just graduated, had, in a moment of thoughtless skylarking, broken a handsome and expensive statue that belonged to her English teacher--Miss Martha Beggs.

The accident was nothing short of a tragedy to Billie, for her father, Martin Bradley, a real estate and insurance agent in North Bend, having most of his capital tied up in property and being at the time engaged in fighting a rather losing fight with the high cost of living was in no position to pay a hundred dollars--which was what the statue was worth.

Billie's worry was deepened by the fact that she would not be able to go with Laura and Violet to Three Towers Hall, a boarding school to which she had wanted to go all her life. The high school in North Bend was notoriously poor and inefficient, and the girls had set their hearts on attending Three Towers in the fall. And now, because of the broken statue, Billie could not go.

Then had come news of Beatrice Powerson's death. Beatrice Powerson was an aunt of Billie's mother for whom Billie had been named. Then came the strange inheritance which the queer old lady, who had spent her life traveling, had left to Billie--the old homestead at Cherry Corners which dated back to revolutionary times and had been the scene of more than one Indian attack.

Readers of the first book of this series will remember how the girls and boys had decided to spend their vacation there, the many queer and spooky experiences they had had, and finally the shabby old trunk which Billie had found stowed away in a corner of the attic--a shabby old trunk that contained riches; at least, so it now seemed to the boys and girls. Five thousand dollars in the shape of old coins and postage stamps.

Billie had sent the wonderful news post-haste to her family, and Mr.

Bradley had hurried out to the old house to see if Billie's discovery was really worth anything.

And now he had just given the result of his investigation to six pairs of ears. To be exact it had better be made seven, for Mrs. Maria Gilligan, Mrs. Jordon's housekeeper and the girls' chaperone on this expedition, was looking on with interest from the doorway.

Five thousand dollars, perhaps more. This almost certainly meant that not only could Billie go to Three Towers Hall, but Chet would be able to go with the other boys to a military academy which was only a little over a mile from Three Towers.

"Oh, Daddy, I'm so glad you came!"

Billie squeezed her father's arm ecstatically.

"I'll say we are," said Ferd Stowing, staring down at the queer little trunk as though he already could see it full to the brim with shining new gold pieces from the mint instead of the old coins and rare postage stamps that were its present contents.

"How soon," he asked, turning to Mr. Bradley, "will you be able to get real money for these?"

"Probably almost as soon as we can get the trunk to North Bend," said Mr. Bradley. "The bank----" But Billie would not let him finish.

"Oh, Daddy, let's hurry!" she cried; then as her chums stared at her in surprise she rushed over to the trunk and slammed the lid shut. "What are you waiting for?" she cried, stamping her foot impatiently as she turned to face them. "If _you_ want to stand around looking foolish, all right. But _I'm_ going home."

"Say! wait a minute," cried Teddy, stopping her as she started from the room. "Perhaps your father----"

"I was going to suggest," said Mr. Bradley, looking at his watch, "that we catch the eight o'clock train for North Bend. Is that at all possible, Mrs. Gilligan?" he asked, turning apologetically to Mrs.

Gilligan.

However, before Mrs. Gilligan could reply, his daughter answered for her.

"Of course it is," she cried. "We girls were beginning to pack anyway.

Come on, girls, what we need is action," and without giving them a chance to protest she fell upon the girls and dragged them from the room.

The boys looked after them with laughing eyes, and Mr. Bradley remarked with a smile: "My young daughter seems to be unusually happy about something."

"No wonder," said Chet, shaking his head ruefully. "I'd be happy, too, if anybody thought enough of me to give me five thousand dollars."

The rest of that afternoon was one wild scramble for the girls and boys, but at the end they made their train with, as the train was late, a few minutes to spare.

The boy who had driven them and their luggage to town was the same who had taken the girls and their chaperone to the old homestead at Cherry Corners upon their arrival over a month before.