nd her.

"My last hope!" she sighed plaintively. "Now what shall I do?"

CHAPTER V

WORSE AND WORSE

Two weeks passed, and still Billie Bradley had found no solution to
her problem. The broken statue seemed as far from being paid for as
ever, and, as far as she was concerned, the summer vacation was
completely spoiled.

In this frame of mind she crushed a soft straw hat down over her brown
hair one day and set out to find her chums, feeling the need of their
sympathy. And how was she to know, poor Billie, that the news the girls
would have to tell her would serve only to make her mood the blacker?

As she neared the Farrington home, Violet herself came rushing out to
meet her, looking unusually and feverishly excited.

"Oh, Billie, what do you think?" she cried, encircling Billie with her
arm and fairly dragging her up on the porch. "I have the most wonderful
news to tell you!"

"What?" gasped Billie, for the unexpected onslaught had literally
taken her breath away. "Goodness! you might as well kill me as scare
me to death."

"Oh, but, Billie, you won't mind when I tell you," cried Violet,
regarding her friend with dancing eyes. "The folks have decided to send
me to Three Towers Hall!" Three Towers was a boarding school some
distance from North Bend. "Laura is going too," Violet continued
breathlessly. "And of course you will--" But something in Billie's face
stopped her and she drew in her breath sharply.

"Oh, Billie," she cried, her face falling, "you're never going to tell me
you can't go!"

"I guess that's just what I am going to tell you," said Billie, her fists
clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. "I might have stood
some chance if it hadn't been for that old statue. Now I can't get enough
money to pay for that--much less go to Three Towers."

"Oh, that old statue!" cried Violet desperately, adding, while her face
grew longer and longer: "What fun will there be, I'd like to know, in
going to Three Towers if you can't go with us? And oh, Billie, I was
making such wonderful plans!"

Billie had to turn away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. For to
go to Three Towers Hall had long been the ambition of the chums, and now
it was doubly hard to see her chance snatched away by an accident that
could have been so easily avoided. If only she had not been so foolish!

Violet came over and put a loving arm about her friend.

"Never mind, honey," she said consolingly, forgetti