some.

The silence was so deep that she was afraid to move for fear of breaking
it, but at last, because her limbs were cramping and she was beginning
to feel chilled, she rose from the couch where she had been sitting and
began moving cautiously about the room.

She stubbed her toe against one chair and almost fell over the other,
making so much noise that her heart stood still and she looked fearfully
over her shoulder. Finally she came over to the couch again and sank
down upon it, feeling that she must cry or die.

But she did not do either, just sat there thinking and thinking what she
could do next. She would have to sleep, she supposed, although Miss Cora
had not given her any nightgown and there were no bedclothes.

Then a happy thought struck her, and she turned down the cover of the
couch and found, as she had hoped, that the couch was made up as a bed.
There were several rooms like this in Three Towers--rooms used only when
there was an overflow of students. Billie remembered having heard the
girls speak of them as "cubby holes."

But Billie was tired and unhappy, and all of a sudden her only wish was
to get within the protection of those covers. Perhaps it would not then
seem so lonesome and she was cold.

After that she knew no more till morning.

It was a dark, dreary morning with a bite in the air that felt like
snow. There was no sign of sunshine anywhere, either outside or inside
of Three Towers Hall.

The girls rose reluctantly, and there was rebellion in their eyes. They
were on the verge of revolt, and it needed only one more unfair act on
the part of Miss Cora or Miss Ada Dill to start the ball rolling.

"Are we going down to breakfast?" asked Laura, as the breakfast gong
rang.

"I suppose we'd better," answered Caroline Brant, her eyes looking tired
and red-rimmed under the spectacles. "We have to eat, anyway. After we
get through we can come up here and decide what we're going to do."

"Well, I know one thing we're going to do," said Laura fiercely. "If the
Dill Pickles don't let Billie come back to us, or at least tell us where
she is, I'm going to set the place on fire, that's all."

"That wouldn't help Billie any," said Rose, as they turned from the
room.

Breakfast was gloomier than ever that morning. The girls were heavy-eyed
and sullen, and Miss Cora, presiding grimly at the head of the table,
looked, as one of the older girls said, "like a death's head at the
feast."

"But