k," she explained,
"we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't have
gotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty,"
she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help you
pay for it, Billie."

Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.

"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," she
chided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't make
me put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the world
am I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"

CHAPTER III

CHET HELPS

The sun was flooding Billie Bradley's room when she awoke the next
morning, and she sat up in bed with the feeling that it must be very
late. She glanced at the little clock on the dresser and saw that its
hands pointed to half past eight.

"Oh, I'll be late to school," was her first thought. Then she checked
herself and laughed.

"School!" she said, stretching her arms above her head with a delicious
sense of freedom. "As the old man said: 'They ain't no sech animile.' I
guess I might just as well get up, though, for I feel as if I were
starving to death."

She was just putting her feet into very pretty bedroom slippers when she
remembered the tragedy--or so it seemed to her--of the day before.

The long night's rest had driven from her mind all thoughts of the
statue. Was it really only yesterday that she had broken it? The thing
seemed to have been on her conscience forever!

"'Girl Reading a Book,'" she said disdainfully, as she began to brush her
hair vigorously. "Horrid old thing! I suppose she was a grind anyway,
like Amanda Peabody."

The thought of Amanda did not serve to lift her spirits any, and it
was in a rather gloomy mood that she finally descended to the
breakfast table.

To make things worse, she found that all the rest of her family,
including Chet, had breakfasted bright and early, which meant that she
would have to eat her breakfast in lonely state.

The room was cheerful with sunlight, for Mrs. Bradley had often said that
a bright dining-room had more to do with making a happy home than any
other one thing. But this morning Billie did not even notice it.

She opened the swinging door to the kitchen and peeped in cautiously to
see whether Debbie, their black and much pampered cook, was in a good
enough mood to cook her some breakfast.

A cheerful aroma greeted her, and she sniffed at it longingl