"Well, all I have to say is," said Nellie as they turned toward the door, "that I hope your strange man stays where he belongs, Billie, and doesn't come back here."

"So say we all of us," said Connie, adding with a shudder: "Ugh! Your story about the 'Codfish' last night, Billie--and now this! It's enough to scare a person to death."

"There you go blaming me again," said Billie plaintively.

In the weeks that followed the girls very nearly forgot about the unknown man, who certainly had no business roaming around Three Towers Hall after midnight.

The only thing the chums did not like about the boarding school was the Twin Dill Pickles. The latter were getting more and more miserly--insisting that the girls were getting too much to eat and that they should be allowed a great deal less liberty. In short, if the twin teachers had had their way Three Towers might have been a prison instead of a boarding school.

"However," said Billie one day, after Miss Cora Dill had been unusually unpleasant, "perhaps we need the Dill Pickles. If we didn't have them we might be too happy."

The girls from North Bend had now become fully settled at the school.

They had made a number of other friends, but so far their enemies seemed to be confined to Amanda Peabody and her constant companion, Eliza Dilks. Except Billie, that is, who added Miss Cora Dill and Rose Belser to her enemy list. Amanda was becoming known as the sneak of the school, but for this she did not seem to care.

"I wouldn't want such a reputation as that," said Laura one day.

"Nor I, either," answered Billie.

The boys from Boxton Military Academy had been over to see the girls several times. Rules were very strict at Three Towers Hall, and if the lads had not been related the boys could probably never have been admitted at all. But Chet and Teddy could come in, and once or twice they managed to smuggle poor Ferd along.

"I wish we could go out for a row on the lake," remarked Billie one evening, as she gazed at the moonlight on the water.

Her wish was gratified the very next day. The boys invited them out, having first obtained Miss Walters' consent to let them go.

Rose Belser had looked and smiled her prettiest--and that was a good deal--the first time she happened to meet the boys and girls together.

But as the boys were too much interested in the fun they were going to have to take much notice of her, she had merely tossed her pretty black head and sauntered off in the opposite direction.

"Somehow or other I can't get next to that girl Rose," remarked Chet to his sister, when the whole crowd was out on the lake.

"Well, Rose is rather peculiar in some respects," answered Billie, not caring to say too much.

"What do you say to a race?" cried Teddy, after they had been rowing around for a while.

"Don't upset!" exclaimed Vi warningly.

"No upsetting to-day, thank you," put in Ferd, who was in the crowd.

The girls were quite willing that the boys should race, and away they went up the lake for half a mile or more. Teddy was carrying Billie, and, of course, he exerted himself to the utmost to win the race.

"Here is where we put it all over you!" cried Chet, who was carrying Laura.

"This race belongs to me," panted Ferd, who had Vi as a pa.s.senger.

A number of the boys and girls on the lake sh.o.r.e were watching the contest, and wondering who would win. In the crowd, more out of curiosity than anything else, were Amanda and Eliza.

"Huh! I wouldn't care to be on the lake with those boys," snapped Amanda. "First thing they know they'll upset."

"They must be splashing water all over each other," was Eliza's comment.

At first it was almost an even race, but gradually Chet and Teddy drew ahead.

"Oh, I guess it's going to be a tie," murmured Billie.

"Not much!" gasped Teddy, and put on an extra spurt which soon sent him quite a distance ahead.

"Hurrah! We win!" shouted Billie triumphantly.

"All right, I guess you do!" flung out her brother. "I guess I ate too much for dinner. That's the reason I couldn't row so well," he explained lamely.

"Oh, dear! I wish we got as much as that to eat," sighed Laura.

The boat race had just come to a finish when those out on the lake heard a cry from the sh.o.r.e. There seemed to be a great commotion among the girls from Three Towers Hall.

"We'll go back and see what's up," shouted Ferd, and those in the rowboats lost no time in following the suggestion.

They were still a hundred feet or more from the lake sh.o.r.e when they saw what had happened. In their eagerness to see the finish of the race Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks had ventured out on a soft bank, holding to some low bushes for that purpose. Bushes and bank had given way suddenly, and both girls had gone floundering into the water and mud up to their waists. Now they had been pulled to safety, and their chums, seeing that they were not hurt, set up a shout of laughter.

"You are mean things, that's what you are!" cried Amanda, in vexation.

"The meanest ever was!" echoed Eliza.

And then the two dripping figures hurried for the friendly shelter of the boarding school.

"Gracious, what a happening!" was Vi's comment. And then she added quickly: "But they deserved it."

"They certainly did," responded Laura. "What a fine thing it would be if they would leave this school."

CHAPTER XVII

THE QUARREL

There was a secret club among the girls at Three Towers Hall, and only the students who stood first in their cla.s.ses could be admitted to the chosen circle.

Also the girls who were lucky enough to be elected to the "Ghost Club,"

for that was what the society was called, must be popular among their fellow students. There was an unwritten law that membership in the club should not exceed fifteen.

Rose Belser was president of the club, while Connie Danvers and several of the other girls with whom Billie and her chums were on the best of terms, were fellow members. Caroline Brant had been asked to join but had refused on the ground that the club took too much time from her studies. It was a compliment to Caroline that, in spite of her refusal, the girls--all except Rose Belser--liked her just the same.

Billie and her chums had not been in Three Towers a week before they had heard of the secret club--no one but the members themselves even knew the name of it--and had realized how much all the girls longed to be members of it.

So when one day Connie came to Billie and whispered something in her ear, it was no wonder that Billie's heart beat a little faster.

But all Connie had really said was: "We want to see you and Laura and Vi outside near the old maple tree at ten to-night. It's very important.

Don't keep us waiting!"