everything calculated to make strong healthy women of the girls who came
to Three Towers Hall.

There was a swimming pool, also, and over this the girls went into
raptures. They had had scarcely any opportunity to learn to swim in
North Bend, and although on their visits to New York they had never
failed--that is, in the summer time--to take a dip, or several of them,
in the Atlantic Ocean, they had never learned to swim more than a few
strokes at a time.

"A swimming pool!" cried Billie. "I suppose we might have known we would
have one here. Now we can really learn to swim. I wonder," and so
interested had she been with her own affairs that this was the first
time she had even given the boys a thought, "if Chet and Teddy and Ferd
have a swimming pool at Boxton Academy."

"Boxton Academy?" Rose took her up quickly, suddenly looking interested.
"Do you know any one who goes there?"

"I should say we do," put in Laura proudly. "Billie's----"

"Billie?" Connie interrupted, looking puzzled.

"I'm 'Billie,'" Billie explained, with a laugh. "They call me 'Billie'
for short."

"Never mind about that," Rose put in impatiently. "What were you saying
about the boys?"

The girls looked at pretty, black-haired, pink-cheeked Rose, and Billie
realized suddenly why it was she had not altogether liked the girl.

"She'll be friendly to almost any girl if she happens to like her
brother," she thought, and instinctively she glanced at Laura. The
latter must have had almost the same thought, for she gave Billie a
meaning glance.

"You said they were at Boxton Academy," Rose insisted.

"Tell us about them," said Connie. She was interested, but in an
entirely different sort of way.

"Well, there's Billie's brother and mine and a chum of theirs, Ferd
Stowing. They came with us as far as Molata. Then they left us for the
Academy and we came on here. And we were having such a good time we
never thought about them," she finished penitently.

The girls were eager to look about the grounds of Three Towers after
that, but Rose would not let them go till she had found out all about
the boys and their "life history," as Billie resentfully said later.
After that the girls noticed that she was even more friendly than she
had been before.

"Oh, well," said Billie to herself, feeling strangely comforted by the
thought, "she won't have much of a chance to see the boys, anyway,
because we can only leave the grounds on special permission a