"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 and prevented a break down by asking:

"Isn't that Laura coming down the street? And the boy with her must be Teddy."

With a quick movement, Billie brushed her hand across her eyes, kissed her mother hard, and straightened the new brown hat.

"You're coming to the station, M--mother?" she asked, and Mrs. Bradley nodded.

After that Chet came in, wrestled with the same troublesome lump in his throat, told his mother, "Not to worry, Mumsey, he'd write every day, and she mustn't forget to write for he was going to miss her awfully,"

and then Mr. Bradley joined them and they all started for the station.

Mr. and Mrs. Jordon were with Teddy and Laura. Teddy said that Ferd was on his way, but had told them not to wait for him, he'd catch up to them later.

A little farther on they picked up Violet and Mr. and Mrs. Farrington, and after that there was no more time to think of being homesick.

There was something in the sunshine, the crisp air, the brilliant, changing colors of the leaves on the trees that went to Billie's head and made her feel as though she were walking on air.

"Do you suppose Ferd will catch up to us?" she asked of Teddy. Teddy was looking unusually handsome this morning--at least so Billie thought--and she was surprised to find that he was walking beside her. "It would be awful if he made us miss the train."

"You don't think we'd _wait_ for him do you?" asked Teddy scornfully.

"If Ferd's late he'll be the only one to miss the train!"

Both Teddy and Billie had always agreed that if you talked of an angel he or she was sure to turn up, and in this case their faith was justified.

For just as they reached the station platform a figure that looked very familiar turned the corner and came rushing down toward them as if bent on running a Marathon.

"There's Ferd--and here's the train," announced Teddy, as a shrill whistle made them jump and look eagerly down the track. "Not much time to waste at that."

The young folks were so taken up in the leave taking that they failed to notice two girls who got on the train just after them. Even if they had not been able to see the faces of these newcomers, an overheard sentence or two would have given them the clue to their ident.i.ty.

"Isn't it just like them, the stuck up things," one of the girls said to the other, "to bring all their relations to see them off?"

"Never mind," said the other with a malicious grin. "I guess I gave them rather a jolt the other day when I told them I was going to Three Towers too. I guess they thought they owned the place and ought to have it all to themselves."

However, the boys and girls were perfectly unaware of this conversation concerning themselves; although it probably would not have bothered them very greatly if they had heard it.

They were still leaning out of the window, calling to those left on the platform and answering injunctions "not to get killed" from their mothers and to "please be careful and not get into any more sc.r.a.pes than they could help" from their fathers, when the guard shouted a warning and the train started off.

They waved until the station and the people on it were out of sight, then settled back in their seats "to view the prospect o'er," Chet said.

For a moment they all felt a little lost and queer, though nothing in the world could have made them confess to the feeling. But the little wave of homesickness soon pa.s.sed off, swallowed up by the vision of the amazing adventure ahead of them.

Before the little party had stowed away their baggage and taken off their wraps, several boys and girls they had known at school came over to greet them and talk things over, and Billie, leaning over to rescue a box of chocolates that had fallen at her feet, suddenly looked up and right into the beaming face of Nellie Bane.

Nellie was a friend of the chums who had rather expected to go to Three Towers Hall with them at first. But Mr. and Mrs. Bane had suddenly decided to go to Europe and take Nellie with them, which had rather upset Nellie's plans. And now here she was on the train with them.

"Why, Nellie!" Billie cried, almost dropping the chocolates again in her surprise and delight. "How did you get here----"

"Through the window," mocked Nellie, and dropped into a vacant seat beside Laura.

"But," stammered the latter, her eyes round and wide with wonder, "the last we heard of you you were going to England."

"Yes. But an aunt of Daddy's died and he decided we'd better postpone the voyage until next summer."

"Are you glad or sorry?" demanded Billie breathlessly.

"Glad," said Nellie without a moment's hesitation. "I want to go to Europe, of course. But I can go there any old time, and I was simply wild to go to Three Towers with you girls. You'll never know how jealous I was," she ended with a sigh.

"Isn't it funny?" marveled Violet. "And here we were envying you!"