Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower

Then she ordered Nick Budd to lead the way back to the Hall. This the simpleton did, although he sometimes staggered under the weight he carried and several times had to put his burden down.

But in spite of the delays and the cold, the return journey seemed short to the girls, for they were triumphantly happy and chattered like magpies all the way back.

“I’ve got my wrist watch! I’ve got my wrist watch!” crowed Connie over and over again till the girls got tired of hearing her and Laura asked her if she would mind changing her tune.

“And won’t the girls be surprised when we tell them what sleuths we are,” added Vi.

“Humph,” sniffed Laura. “Billie is the real detective. We’re only – what do you call ’em? – ‘also rans.’ We come in at the end and clap noisily.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Billie. “I couldn’t have done a thing without you girls. Look out,” she cried sharply, as Nick Budd stumbled and almost dropped his load. “If you should break that thing, Nick Budd, I’d murder you.” But this last was delivered in an undertone. The poor simpleton had troubles enough without being threatened.

“Oh,” giggled Laura, incorrigibly, “ain’t she the vicious thing?”

One would have thought that the girls had had about enough excitement that day, but it seemed that fate still held a little more in store for them.

They were coming up the winding path that led to the Hall when they saw a black-clad figure that looked strangely familiar hurrying on before them.

“Isn’t that Polly Haddon?” asked Vi, eagerly. “Yes, it is. Oh, what luck!”

She was about to call out, but Billie stopped her.

“We’ll want to break it to her gently,” she warned, but her warning came too late. Polly Haddon had heard their voices and had glanced back indifferently.

Then, recognizing the girls, she turned and came hurrying toward them. At sight of her, Nick Budd dropped his burden in the snow and ran for all he was worth back the way he had come.

Billie tried to put herself between Polly Haddon and that bulky object in the snow, but once more she was too late. For the woman had seen.

With a little cry, Polly Haddon crumpled suddenly and lay out in the snow, as inert as a bundle of old clothes.

“Good gracious!” cried Laura frantically. “Now just when everything is beautiful and lovely, she’s gone and died!”

CHAPTER XXV – PRETTY FROCKS

But Polly Haddon had not died. One very seldom does – of happiness. Some way the girls managed to get her inside the Hall and administer hot drinks and hot food and in a surprisingly short time she was herself again.

Not quite herself, for she was beautified and transfigured with happiness into a very different Polly Haddon from the one the girls had known.

Miss Walters was summoned and made her come into her own private rooms. Of course the girls went also, and while Mrs. Haddon was stretched luxuriously on a couch in Miss Walters’ sitting-room, Billie told how she had frightened the simpleton into confessing his guilt and restoring the stolen goods.

Billie was so modest about her leading part in the affair that Laura was forced to interrupt occasionally, and, disregarding Billie’s frowns, add a bit of explanation here and there that enabled her audience to visualize the thing just as it had happened.

The machinery model had been brought inside and deposited in one of the study halls, and now Miss Walters asked Mrs. Haddon what she wished done with it.

“We can keep it here for you, in the big school safe,” she suggested, “or we can have it carried over to your house, just as you wish.”

“Oh no, leave it here,” said Polly Haddon quickly. “I will notify that Philadelphia knitting company that the invention has been recovered, and if they still wish to buy it, it probably will not remain here long. Oh, how can I thank you all – ” her voice broke, and for a little while all of them felt a bit uncomfortable while Polly Haddon sobbed out her happiness and gratitude.

It was over at last, however, and the girls were free to go back to their dormitory and the curiosity of their friends.

Here, perched on the bed with Connie and Vi, Laura gave a graphic account of everything just as it had happened to a sympathetic audience of some twenty girls.

She rang Billie’s praises to such an extent that the poor girl tried to hide herself in an inconspicuous corner, only to be dragged forth into the limelight again by a couple of laughing and heartless maidens.

“You get up there where you belong,” cried one of them, shoving Billie up into the center of the bed which was already over-crowded with giggling girls. “Don’t you know that you’re a real, honest-to-goodness heroine?”

“And for the second time to-day,” drawled Rose Belser, her eyes fixed a little enviously upon Billie’s pretty, flushed face. “Wasn’t it enough to win the prize, without going and getting yourself in the limelightagain?”

Laura and Vi flushed angrily, for there was a little malice under the question. But Billie took it all good-naturedly.

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose – not the last part, anyway,” she said.

“We know you didn’t, honey,” said Connie, ruffling Billie’s dark curls fondly. “You’re just naturally talented.”

“By the way,” asked Laura, after an interval of skylarking, “does anybody know what happened to Amanda?”

“She was suspended,” replied one of the girls.

“And I thought it was a pity she wasn’t expelled,” spoke up another.

“Poor Eliza!” drawled Rose. “I wonder what she will do without her master.”

“Does anybody know who won the second prize?” asked Laura carelessly.

“What a queer question to ask,” said Caroline Brant, who had been dreaming about the thesis she was going to write and had hardly heard a word of the conversation. “You did, of course!”

It took a little time for this to sink in, for Laura had long ago given up hope of winning a prize for herself. But when it did finally beat its way into her mind she straightway proceeded to turn the place upside down in her hilarity.

She found Billie’s sewing basket, dumped out its contents, and turned it upside down on her head for a crown.

Then she draped a bedspread about her shoulders, queen fashion, and two of her classmates caught up the dangling ends that formed a train.

Then they marched through the halls crying, “Way for the queen!” and gathering a crowd of giggling girls as they went.

“What’s it all about?”

“Queen indeed! Just look at her with that workbasket on her head!”

“They are having the sport because Laura took the second prize in that composition contest.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, I’m glad they showed up Amanda – and Billie Bradley certainly deserved the first prize.”

The merriment grew louder, and presently the crowd made Laura mount a stand and deliver what they called “an oration.”

“Tell us about making linen dusters for the Laplanders,” suggested one girl.

“Or overcoats for the heathens in Africa,” suggested another.

“Or how to make sponge cake from live sponges.”