Chapter 10 TWO OF A KIND

Several days had passed, and the girls were at last actually looking forward to the end of the school term and to the Danvers bungalow on Lighthouse Island!

The graduates were running around excitedly in the last preparations for graduation with the strange look on their young faces that most graduates have, half exultation at the thought of their success, half grief at being forced to leave the school, the friends they had made, the scenes they had loved.

Just the day before the one set for graduation Teddy ran over to tell the girls some wonderful news. He was able to see only Billie, for the other girls had been busy with their lessons. But that was very satisfactory to Teddy.

As soon as the lunch gong rang Billie had called the girls together and eagerly she told them what Teddy had told her.

"Paul Martinson's father gave him a beautiful big motor boat-a cruising motor boat," she told the girls. "Paul got the highest average in his class this term, you know, and his father has given him the motor boat as a sort of prize."

"A motor boat!" cried Vi, breathlessly. "That's some prize."

"But, Billie, what's that got to do with us?" asked Laura practically.

"It hasn't much to do with us," said Billie, her face pink with excitement. "But it has a great deal to do with the boys. Paul Martinson has asked Chet and Ferd and Teddy to go with him and his father on a cruise this summer."

She paused from lack of breath, and the girls looked at her in amazement.

"My, that's wonderful for them," said Laura after a minute, adding a little regretfully: "But I suppose it means that we won't see very much of the boys this summer."

"Oh, but that's just what it doesn't mean!" Billie interrupted eagerly. "Don't you see? Why, Teddy said that it would be the easiest thing in the world to stop off at Lighthouse Island some time and see us girls."

The girls agreed that it was all perfectly wonderful, that everything was working just for them, and that this couldn't possibly help being the most wonderful summer they had ever spent.

They did not have as much time to think about it as they would have liked, however, in the busy excited hours that followed. Right after the graduating exercises all the girls were to start for their homes, except the few who expected to spend the summer at Three Towers Hall.

Many of the relatives and friends of the graduates were expected, so that preparations had to be made for them also. The graduating exercises were to be held earlier at Boxton Military Academy than at Three Towers Hall, so that the three North Bend boys hoped to get away in time to attend-not the exercises themselves-but the singing on the steps of Three Towers Hall by all the students of the school, which was one of the most important parts of the ceremony.

Then, of course, the boys would be able to go with the girls all the way to North Bend.

The exercises that had been looked forward to for so long and that had taken weeks of preparation to perfect, were over at last. The graduates realized with a sinking of the heart that they were no longer students of Three Towers Hall.

There was still the mass singing on the steps, to be sure, but that was simply the last barrier to be crossed before they stepped out on the open road, leaving Three Towers Hall with its pleasing associations behind them forever.

As the girls, in their simple white dresses, gathered on the steps of the school with the visitors, fathers and mothers and boys in uniform, scattered about on the campus below them, and began to sing in their clear, girlish voices, there was hardly a dry eye anywhere.

At last it was over, and the girls rushed upstairs again to change their dresses for traveling clothes and say a last good-bye to their teachers and to Miss Walters.

As Billie was hurrying down the corridor, bag in hand, toward the front door a hand was laid gently on her arm, and, turning, she found herself face to face with Miss Arbuckle.

"Billie," said the teacher hurriedly, "I have never thanked you rightly for the great favor you did in returning my album to me. But I love you for it, dear. God bless you," and before Billie could think of a word to say in reply, the teacher had turned, slipped through one of the doors and disappeared.

Billie stood staring after Miss Arbuckle, lost in thought about her, until Laura and Vi, hurrying up, caught her by the arm and hustled her through the front door, down the steps and into the waiting carryall. The carryall, by the way, was to make many trips that day, even though a great many of the girls had automobiles belonging to their relatives or friends which would take them straight to their destination.

When the girls had climbed inside, the boys jumped in after them, and the carryall, having by this time all that it could hold, started down the long, winding driveway to the road.

"Good-bye, Three Towers, for a little time, at least," cried Billie, while she felt a curious lump in her throat. She was terribly afraid she was going to cry, so she stopped talking and turned to stare out of the window.

"We've had a wonderful time there," said Laura in, for her, a very sober tone. "Better than we expected."

"Which is going some," finished Vi slangily, and as slang from Vi somehow always made them laugh, they laughed now and felt better for it.

"Well, we didn't have such a very slow time ourselves," said Billie's brother Chet, his good looking face lighting up with eagerness.

"And it's something to have made a friend like Paul Martinson," spoke up Ferd Stowing from where he was squeezed in between Laura and Vi.

"You bet-he's some boy," added Teddy heartily, forgetting for the moment that there had been times when he had longed to throw Paul Martinson into the lake-or some deeper place-because he had talked too much to Billie.

But here was a beautiful long train ride before him when he could talk to Billie-or any one else-all he liked without having any Paul Martinson trying to "butt in" all the time. No wonder he was friends with all the world.

"Where is Paul? Why didn't he come with us?" asked Billie.

"He went home with his dad," Chet explained. "Of course he was crazy to see his motor boat, and then he had to make arrangements for our cruise. Oh boy, think of cruising around the coast in a motor boat!"

"We wanted Connie to come along with us," said Billie. "But she said she would have to go home first."

"When are you girls going to start for Lighthouse Island?" Ferd asked with interest. "Have you set any time yet?"

"Not a regular date," answered Laura. "But it will be in a week or two I think. We'll have to have time to get acquainted with the folks again and have our clothes fixed up--"

"And then Connie's coming on to North Bend," Vi added eagerly. "And we'll all go together from there to the coast. Oh dear, I can't wait to start."

"Well, I guess you'll have to," said Billie, with a sigh, "since we haven't even reached home yet."

"That reminds me," said Laura, turning upon Billie accusingly. "What were you doing standing in the hall just now and looking as though you had lost your last friend when Vi and I came along and woke you up? Come on, 'fess up."

Billie could not think for a moment what she had been doing, then she remembered Miss Arbuckle and the rather peculiar way the teacher had thanked her for the return of the album.

She told the girls about it, and they listened with interest while the boys looked as if they would like to have known what it was all about.

"Now I wonder--" Laura was beginning when Billie suddenly caught her hand and pointed to the road.

"Look!" she cried. "It's Hugo Billings, our sad, faced man again. Oh, girls, I wish we could do something for him."

She leaned far out the window, smiled and waved her hand to the man, who was standing moodily by the roadside. At sight of her he straightened up and an answering smile flashed across his thin face, making him look so different that the girls were amazed.

But when they looked back at him again a few seconds later his smile had gone and he was staring after them gloomily.

"Goodness, I never saw a person look so sad in all my life," murmured Vi, as a turn in the road hid the man from view.

"Well, I have," said Billie. "And that's Miss Arbuckle!"

"There must be some sort of mystery about them both," remarked Laura. "Maybe that man has a whole lot on his mind."

"And maybe Miss Arbuckle isn't miss at all," added Vi. "Perhaps she's Mrs. Arbuckle and those children were her own."

Billie did not reply to this. She heaved something of a sigh. She was unable to explain it, but she felt very sorry for both the teacher and the queer man. Would the queer mystery ever be explained?

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