MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
It was the spring of the year, a time when every normal boy and girl
becomes restless for new scenes, new adventures. The girls at Three
Towers Hall heard the mysterious call and longed through hot days of
study to respond to it.
The teachers felt the restlessness in the air and strove to keep the
girls to their lessons by making them more interesting. But it was of no
use. The girls studied because they had to, not, except in a few
scattered cases, because they wanted to.
One of the exceptions to the rule was Caroline Brant, a natural student
and a serious girl, who had set herself the rather hopeless task of
watching over Billie Bradley and keeping her out of scrapes. For Billie,
with her love of adventure and excitement, was forever getting into some
sort of scrape.
But these days it would have taken half a dozen Caroline Brants to have
kept Billie in the traces. Billie was as wild as an unbroken colt, and
just 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 term
at Three Towers Hall was drawing to a close, and at the end of the spring
term came--freedom.
But the thing that set their blood racing was the thought of what was in
store for them after they had gained their freedom. Connie Danvers had
given the girls an invitation to visit during their vacation her father's
bungalow on Lighthouse Island, a romantic spot off the Maine coast.
The prospect had appealed to the girls even in the dead of winter; but
now, 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 on
the island, and the latter had consented on one condition. And that
condition was that the girls should make a good record for themselves at
Three Towers Hall. And it is greatly to be feared that it was only this
unreasonable--to the girls--condition that kept them at their studies at
all.
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 of
this task on Saturday morning, so as to have her Saturday afternoon and
Sunday free. She had never succeeded in winning Laura and Vi over to her
method, so that on their part there was usually a wild scramble to
prepare Monday's lessons on Sunday afternoon.
As Billie, books in hand and a satisfied feeling in her heart, came out
of the study room, she very nearly ran into Miss Arbuckle. Miss Arbuckle
seemed in a great hurry about something, and the tip of her nose and her
eyes were red as though she had been crying.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Billie, for Billie was not at all tactful
when any one was in trouble. Her impulse was to jump in and help, whether
one really wanted her help or not. But everybody that knew Billie forgave
her her lack of tact and loved her for the desire to help.
So now Miss Arbuckle, after a moment of hesitation, motioned Billie into
the study room, and, crossing over to one of the windows, stood looking
out, tapping with her fingers on the sill.
"I've lost something, Billie," she said, without looking around. "It may
not seem much to you or to anybody else. But for me--well, I'd rather
have 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 that
would 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 smiled
and patted Billie's shoulder fondly, "I didn't mean to burden your young
shoulders with my troubles. Just run along and forget all about it."
Billie did run along, but she most certainly did not "forget all about
it."
"Funny thing to get so upset about," she said to herself, as she slowly
climbed the steps to her dormitory. "A picture album! I don't believe I'd
ever get my nose and eyes all red over one. Just the same, I'd like to
find it and give it back to her. Good Miss Arbuckle! After the Dill
Pickles, she seems like an angel."
She was still smiling over the thought of what had happened to the Dill
Pickles when she opened the door of the dormitory and came upon her
chums.
Laura and Vi and a dark-haired, pink-cheeked girl were sitting on one of
the beds in one corner of the dormitory, alternately talking and gazing
dreamily out of the window to Lake Molata, where it gleamed and shimmered
in the morning sunlight at the end of a sloping lawn.
The dark-haired, pink-cheeked girl was Rose Belser. Rose Belser, being
jealous of Billie's immense popularity at Three Towers Hall the term
before, had done her best to get the new girl into trouble, only to be
won over to Billie's side in the end. Now she was as firm a friend of
Billie'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 her
lazy tone and sitting up with a bounce, "I don't see why you have to go
and spoil the whole morning with your beastly old studying. Think of the
fun we could have had."
"Well, but think of the fun we're going to have this afternoon," Billie
flung back airily, stopping before the mirror to tuck some wisps of hair
into place, while the girls, even Rose, who was as pretty as a picture
herself, watched her admiringly. "It's almost lunch time."
"You don't have to tell us that," said Vi in an aggrieved tone. "Haven't
we been waiting for you all morning?"
"Oh, come on," said Billie, as the lunch gong sounded invitingly through
the 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 for
Billie. But Billie was already flying down the steps two at a time, and
when Billie once got a head start, no one, at least no one in Three
Towers Hall, had a chance of catching up with her.
It seemed to be Billie's day for bumping into people--for at the foot of
the stairs she had to clutch the banister to keep from colliding with
Miss 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 utterly
incorrigible."
Billie looked thoughtful as she seated herself at the table, and a moment
later, under cover of the general conversation, she leaned over and
whispered to Laura.
"Miss Walters said something funny to me," she confided. "I'm not quite
sure 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 suddenly
cleared and she smiled beamingly.
"Why yes, don't you remember?" she said. "We had it in English class the
other day. Incorrigible means wicked, you know--bad. You can't reform
'em, you know--incorrigibles." The last word was mumbled through a
mouthful of soup.
"Can't reform 'em!" Billie repeated in dismay. "Goodness, do you suppose
that's what she really thinks of me?"
"I don't see why she shouldn't," Laura said wickedly, and Billie would
surely have thrown something at her if Miss Arbuckle's eye had not
happened at that moment to turn in her direction.
Miss Arbuckle's eye brought to Billie's mind the teacher's trouble, and
she confided it in a low tone to Laura.
"Humph," commented Laura, her mind only on the fun they were going to
have that afternoon, "I'm sorry, of course, but I don't believe any old
album 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 the pictures of those you loved very
dearly--pictures perhaps of those that were dead and gone and pictures
that you couldn't replace?"
"Oh, well--I suppose that would be different. Did she say anything about
the people?"
"She didn't go into details, but she said they were pictures she prized
above 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, bound
for town and shopping and perhaps some ice cream and--oh, just a jolly
good time of the kind girls know so well how to have, especially in the
spring of the year.