Billie and her chums were half way down the table, a fact for which they were very thankful. Placed only two or three seats away from Miss Cora, at the head of the table, was Nellie Bane. Nellie seemed to have struck up a sudden friendship with one of the half dozen girls who had spent the summer at the school, and the two were evidently having an interesting conversation.

Billie, catching Nellie's eye, telegraphed to her by means of the sign language the wish to see her some time after lunch, and Nellie, in the same language, agreed.

At last lunch was over and the girls reluctantly left the table. But as they were about to leave the room Miss Cora called them together again, saying that she had something important to say to them.

"You will each find a set of rules on your dresser," she said. "And before you do anything else it will be well for each girl to become thoroughly acquainted with them and the penalties for breaking them.

After to-day any departure from the rules will meet with the proper punishment."

"Anybody would think we were three years old," grumbled Laura, when they were on their way back to the dormitories. "Goodness, I wonder who ever let her in, anyway."

"Oh, you'll soon get used to her," Rose a.s.sured them. She seemed to have attached herself definitely to the girls, who, although they found her amusing and interesting, would rather have been left to themselves on this first day. "Everybody dislikes her at first--and Miss Ada, too--but they only laugh at them after awhile. You see," she finished as if the girls must understand, "we have Miss Walters."

"Well, all I have to say," said Laura, whose temper had been considerably ruffled by this second of the "Twin Dill Pickles," "is that it's lucky Miss Walters and not Miss Cora is at the head of things."

When the girls reached the dormitory they looked for the rules, found them, and sat down eagerly to read them over together. First of all they found that the dormitories, eleven in all, were lettered. The letter of their dormitory was "C."

There were the usual rules about late hours, going outside the grounds without leave, neglecting to wear rubbers in the rain, all with the usual penalties attached. But the one that most interested the girls was the punishment given for keeping lights on after hours.

"Three days without recreation and isolation in the dormitory for the duration of that period," read Billie indignantly. "Goodness! I wonder if all that happens to you if you keep your light on five minutes after hours."

"It does if Miss Cora or Miss Ada catches you," drawled Rose, from where she was curled up again on the foot of the bed watching the girls with lazy interest. "Some of the teachers are all right. There's Miss Harris, and Miss Race the math teacher. If they catch you just a few minutes over time they'll give you a lecture and let you off without reporting it to Miss Walters. But if it's any of the others--look out, that's all."

A few minutes later Nellie Bane came in, bringing her new friend with her, and for a little while the girls forgot all about rules and "Twin Dill Pickles" and everything else and just had a good time.

Nellie's new acquaintance was a small fluffy little blonde whom the girls liked right away. Her name was Constance Danvers, called "Connie"

for short, and the name seemed to suit her exactly. Of course, she and Rose Belser, having spent the preceding year together, knew each other well, but Billie noticed that the two girls did not seem over friendly.

"I don't know," she thought to herself, "but I'm going to like Connie better than Rose."

A little while later Rose suggested that she and Connie show the girls about the Hall, to which the newcomers eagerly agreed.

"I wonder," said Vi suddenly, as they were about to leave the room, "what has become of Amanda and Eliza Dilks. They haven't been up here since lunch."

"Well, why should we care?" sang out Billie happily. "I only hope they stay away."

"Probably up to some mean tricks," said Laura gloomily.

Connie and Rose were eager to hear more of Eliza and her friend, but the chums could not be made to tell tales. The girls would have to find out what Amanda was for themselves.

"Only," thought Billie to herself, as they ran down the stairs, "I would like to know where those two sneaks are and why they didn't come back to the dormitory. I know they'll _try_ to spoil all our fun, even if they can't _do_ it."

CHAPTER X

LAKE MOLATA

How the girls did enjoy the rest of that afternoon! Connie and Rose showed them the cla.s.srooms and lecture rooms, told them little stories about the different teachers and recounted funny incidents of school life that made the girls bubble with laughter.

All the rooms were high-ceilinged, many-windowed and cheerful, but it was the lecture hall and gymnasium that the girls thought the most attractive of all.

The lecture room was on the third floor and was arranged in the shape of a Roman circus, the seats in tiers all around the room with the lecture platform in the center.

"My, I won't even mind being lectured to in a room like this," said Vi, in an awed little voice. "Do you have many lectures?"

"Too many," drawled Rose, sinking down in one of the seats and spreading out her ruffled dress carefully. The girls had been too excited to notice the dress before, but now they saw it was much more elaborate than any they had brought with them, except one or two apiece for party wear.

"I wonder if all the girls dress like that for every day," thought Billie in a sort of panic, looking down at the pretty little brown cloth dress she had thought so wonderful at home. She wondered if Vi and Laura felt the same way.

A little later they wandered downstairs to the gymnasium, and then all thought of clothes was put in the background.

Around the gymnasium were all sorts of swinging ladders and standing ladders. There were punching bags and medicine b.a.l.l.s; in fact, everything calculated to make strong healthy women of the girls who came to Three Towers Hall.

There was a swimming pool, also, and over this the girls went into raptures. They had had scarcely any opportunity to learn to swim in North Bend, and although on their visits to New York they had never failed--that is, in the summer time--to take a dip, or several of them, in the Atlantic Ocean, they had never learned to swim more than a few strokes at a time.

"A swimming pool!" cried Billie. "I suppose we might have known we would have one here. Now we can really learn to swim. I wonder," and so interested had she been with her own affairs that this was the first time she had even given the boys a thought, "if Chet and Teddy and Ferd have a swimming pool at Boxton Academy."

"Boxton Academy?" Rose took her up quickly, suddenly looking interested.

"Do you know any one who goes there?"

"I should say we do," put in Laura proudly. "Billie's----"

"Billie?" Connie interrupted, looking puzzled.

"I'm 'Billie,'" Billie explained, with a laugh. "They call me 'Billie'

for short."

"Never mind about that," Rose put in impatiently. "What were you saying about the boys?"

The girls looked at pretty, black-haired, pink-cheeked Rose, and Billie realized suddenly why it was she had not altogether liked the girl.

"She'll be friendly to almost any girl if she happens to like her brother," she thought, and instinctively she glanced at Laura. The latter must have had almost the same thought, for she gave Billie a meaning glance.

"You said they were at Boxton Academy," Rose insisted.

"Tell us about them," said Connie. She was interested, but in an entirely different sort of way.

"Well, there's Billie's brother and mine and a chum of theirs, Ferd Stowing. They came with us as far as Molata. Then they left us for the Academy and we came on here. And we were having such a good time we never thought about them," she finished penitently.

The girls were eager to look about the grounds of Three Towers after that, but Rose would not let them go till she had found out all about the boys and their "life history," as Billie resentfully said later.

After that the girls noticed that she was even more friendly than she had been before.

"Oh, well," said Billie to herself, feeling strangely comforted by the thought, "she won't have much of a chance to see the boys, anyway, because we can only leave the grounds on special permission and they won't be able to get away from the Academy to come here very often. I suppose I'm an awful cat," she finished ruefully, "but I'm not going to let her meet any of our boys if I can help it."

A little later she forgot all about her irritation in the delight of walking about the beautifully kept grounds of Three Towers and examining the outside of the picturesque old building itself.

The latter was even more beautiful than they had thought in their first glimpse of it, with its rugged, ivy-grown walls and its three-battlemented towers rising above the trees.