"

CHAPTER VIII

THE DILL PICKLES

Miss Walters took the girls into her office, looked up the cards she had
made out for them--for of course their names had been sent in some time
before as prospective students at Three Towers Hall--and then called in
another teacher, Miss Ada Dill, who had part charge of the dormitories.

Miss Dill was tall and thin with sharp black eyes and white hair drawn
severely back from her forehead. She smiled when Miss Walters introduced
her to the girls, but her smile reminded Billie of the smile on the face
of a Chinese idol which she and her chums had come upon among the
antiques of the old homestead at Cherry Corners. It was merely a crack
in her face and the beady black eyes remained unsmiling.

"Miss Dill," Miss Walters told the girls, "will show you your places in
the dormitories and will give you the hours for meals and such other
information as you will need at first. Lunch will be served in half an
hour, and after that you may have the rest of the day to yourselves to
become acquainted with Three Towers Hall."

Then she dismissed them, and Billie and the other new arrivals found
themselves following the stiff back of Miss Dill through the corridor
and up a broad flight of steps.

They met several girls on their way to the dormitory, and the latter
looked at them curiously. The girls learned a little later that these
students had spent the summer at Three Towers, although most of the
girls had gone home to relatives and friends and would not be back until
the next day.

It was a rule at Three Towers Hall that the new students should report
the day before the year formally opened for the purpose of becoming
acquainted with the rules and regulations of the school.

"Wasn't that a pretty girl?" Vi whispered to Billie, as Miss Ada Dill
opened the dormitory door and a lovely girl with very pink cheeks and
very black hair stopped for a word with the teacher and then hurried
past the girls on her way downstairs. "I wonder who she is."

"If she's as nice as she is pretty," Billie whispered back, "she'll be
all right."

Then they stepped into the long, many-windowed room and looked about
them curiously. There were beds, beds, beds and more beds. Everywhere
the girls looked they seemed to see nothing but beds. As a matter of
fact there were only ten of them, but the girls could have sworn there
were at least twice that number.

"We can put five of you girls in here," Miss