For a minute Billie just stared, while several girls about them paused in their own conversations to listen. Vi was aghast and Laura was furious.

"Well," said Billie at last, letting her gaze travel from Eliza's mean face to her ill-fitting shoes--somewhere Billie had heard that people hate to have you look at their feet--"maybe you'd better move. There's lots more room on the other side."

The girls chuckled. Laura said: "Good for you, Billie," under her breath, and Eliza flushed angrily. She seemed about to speak, but as Billie was still gazing steadily at her feet she looked down at them herself and thereby lost the battle.

However, the incident had made them miss some of the prettiest scenery in Molata, and it was almost with a feeling of regret that the girls saw the majestic three towers of Three Towers Hall rise before them.

Their regret did not last long, however; and when the car started up the broad driveway the girls strained their eyes for a better view.

It was a beautiful place. The hall itself was built of rough, greenish-gray stone, and over the whole front of it, twining round the windows, hanging over the doors, grew clinging, bright green ivy.

A smooth velvety lawn sloped down straight to the water, and the girls cried out at this, their first glimpse of Lake Molata. Through the trees, the water of the lake glistened and shimmered and danced while the soft rippling sound of tiny wavelets lapping at the bank seemed to call to them invitingly.

"Oh, g-girls, it's lovelier even than we pictured it!" cried Laura, stammering in her eagerness. "Aren't you just c-crazy to get out on that water?"

"Yes. But look!" cried Billie, grasping her arm and pointing to the front door of Three Towers Hall. "There's the president, I suppose, waiting to welcome us."

For in the doorway was standing a slender figure in white, evidently waiting, as Billie had said, to welcome the girls to Three Towers Hall.

Other girls had noticed her, too, and as the attendant came around and opened the door, they all scrambled down in a flurry of excitement.

"It's Miss Walters," the whisper went around, and Billie felt a thrill of excitement.

"Miss Walters!" Always she had seemed to Billie a person to be looked up to--a sort of G.o.ddess set apart from ordinary mortals. For Miss Sara Walters had been head of Three Towers Hall for a number of years--always, it seemed to Billie. And now Billie was actually going to see her, talk to her, perhaps even make her take notice of her, Billie, above the others!

As she rather breathlessly ascended the steps to the entrance of Three Towers with the other girls she studied this slim, straight woman who had been the heroine of so many of her day dreams.

And what she saw satisfied even Billie.

Miss Walters was only thirty-five, but her hair was snow white and framed her face in thick wavy ma.s.ses. Her complexion was pink and white, and her dark violet eyes looked almost black under their dark lashes.

And her figure was that of a girl of twenty.

"Isn't she wonderful?" Vi whispered in her ear; but Billie squeezed her arm warningly.

"Sh-h," she said. "She might hear us."

"I wouldn't care if she did," said Violet with unusual spirit, and in her heart Billie could not blame her.

A moment more and Miss Walters was speaking to them, saying a few words to each of them, welcoming them to Three Towers Hall.

Then she turned and led the way into the building, the girls crowding after her eagerly.

"And her voice," said Billie, adoringly in Laura's ear, "is the very sweetest part of her!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE DILL PICKLES

Miss Walters took the girls into her office, looked up the cards she had made out for them--for of course their names had been sent in some time before as prospective students at Three Towers Hall--and then called in another teacher, Miss Ada Dill, who had part charge of the dormitories.

Miss Dill was tall and thin with sharp black eyes and white hair drawn severely back from her forehead. She smiled when Miss Walters introduced her to the girls, but her smile reminded Billie of the smile on the face of a Chinese idol which she and her chums had come upon among the antiques of the old homestead at Cherry Corners. It was merely a crack in her face and the beady black eyes remained unsmiling.

"Miss Dill," Miss Walters told the girls, "will show you your places in the dormitories and will give you the hours for meals and such other information as you will need at first. Lunch will be served in half an hour, and after that you may have the rest of the day to yourselves to become acquainted with Three Towers Hall."

Then she dismissed them, and Billie and the other new arrivals found themselves following the stiff back of Miss Dill through the corridor and up a broad flight of steps.

They met several girls on their way to the dormitory, and the latter looked at them curiously. The girls learned a little later that these students had spent the summer at Three Towers, although most of the girls had gone home to relatives and friends and would not be back until the next day.

It was a rule at Three Towers Hall that the new students should report the day before the year formally opened for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the rules and regulations of the school.

"Wasn't that a pretty girl?" Vi whispered to Billie, as Miss Ada Dill opened the dormitory door and a lovely girl with very pink cheeks and very black hair stopped for a word with the teacher and then hurried past the girls on her way downstairs. "I wonder who she is."

"If she's as nice as she is pretty," Billie whispered back, "she'll be all right."

Then they stepped into the long, many-windowed room and looked about them curiously. There were beds, beds, beds and more beds. Everywhere the girls looked they seemed to see nothing but beds. As a matter of fact there were only ten of them, but the girls could have sworn there were at least twice that number.

"We can put five of you girls in here," Miss Dill said in a crisp, dry tone, almost as if she resented having to say it at all. "Are there any of you who would particularly like to be together?"

Of course Billie spoke up for herself and Laura and Vi, and after regarding her severely through her gla.s.ses for a moment, Miss Dill finally a.s.signed three beds at the further end of the room to the chums.

"Then there is room for two more," Miss Dill said, and to the horror of the chums Amanda Peabody came forward, holding Eliza Dilks by the hand.

Laura uttered a little exclamation and seemed about to protest when Billie pinched her arm and made her say "ouch" instead.

"There's no use in saying anything," Billie whispered fiercely. "It wouldn't do any good, and we'd only make more of an enemy of that--those girls."

They were relieved a little when they saw that "those girls" were a.s.signed to beds half way down the room so there would at least be a few neutral girls in the beds between.

"So if the rest of you will come with me," said Miss Dill, "I will give you places in the other dormitories."

Then she and the other girls went out into the hall, the door was shut, and the chums were left alone in the big room with Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks.

The girls sank down upon their beds and looked about them curiously.

There was a little wash basin and a towel rack beside each snowy white bed and on the towel rack hung several small towels with blue and white borders.

The beds were set at regular intervals down the long room, and the s.p.a.ces in between them were fitted out in such a manner as almost to make a separate little room for each girl.

Beside the wash basins, there was a dresser set at the foot of each white bed and under each bed was a hamper for soiled clothes. Each girl had a little table with a chair to match.

The woodwork had been painted white and the walls were a grayish blue color with several pretty pictures scattered about them to break the bareness.

"Why, the room's all blue and white," Billie suddenly discovered delightedly. "Isn't that a lovely blue they've painted the wall? And the snowy white woodwork! Oh, it's delicious!"

"And just look at the view from this window!" cried Vi, beckoning to them eagerly. As the girls looked over her shoulder they fairly gasped with delight.