ither," said Nellie, looking fierce.

"Well, you all needn't look at me as if it were my fault," said Billie
plaintively. "I certainly didn't ask him to come and keep me awake all
the rest of the night."

"But nobody's answered my question," Connie objected. "I want to know
what we're going to do about it."

"Why, there's nothing to do about it," said Billie. "I suppose all we
can do is to wait till we see him again--if we do--and then tell Miss
Walters about it."

At that moment the gong rang and hands flew to straightening hair and
belts and ruffles preparatory to starting the afternoon classes.

"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 com