asked Billie how many rooms she would need, and Billie turned
to the girls rather helplessly. Then it was Caroline Brant who came to
her aid.

"We can sleep three in a room," she said, regarding the clerk gravely
through her horn-rimmed spectacles. "So you can figure out just how many
we'll need."

"If we could have cots put in the rooms," Billie ventured, "we could
get more than three in one room."

"All right," the clerk answered, still unsmiling, while several people
had gathered around and were looking on with interest. "If you don't
mind cots I guess I can fix you up all right. It's lucky that it's
winter," he added, a little twinkle creeping into his nice eyes, "and
that the hotel isn't crowded, or we might have to turn somebody out."

He watched the girls go up the stairway to the rooms above--for they had
decided they would rather walk than wait for the elevator--then turned
to one of the men lounging near with a chuckle.

"Nice kids," he said, regarding the signatures in the big book before
him written in unmistakably girlish hands. "If they weren't dressed so
well, I'd say it was an orphan asylum out for an airing."

Meanwhile the girls had decided that they were more hungry than they
were tired, and so merely stopped to drop their bags in their rooms and
brush a little of the clinging snow from their clothing before setting
forth in search of food.

They had decided to separate into groups and to eat in different places
so as not to attract too much attention, and they were gathered on the
sidewalk in front of the hotel wondering just what to do next when
suddenly one of the girls gave a startled cry.

"Girls--no, it isn't--yes, it is!" she cried, clutching the girl beside
her hysterically. "Look! There's Miss Walters!"

"Where?"

"Oh, it can't be!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, there she is! There she is!"

And Miss Walters--for it was indeed she--attracted by the hubbub as were
some other passersby, looked at the girls first curiously, then in
astounded amazement. To her startled vision it seemed as if all the
girls in the world were gathered there on the sidewalk in front of the
hotel. And they were her girls--the girls of Three Towers Hall!

She hurried forward, feeling that the next moment she must wake up and
find it all a dream, and the girls surged around her in an eager flood.

They were so wildly surprised and joyful at the unexpected meeting that
they were almost ready to get down on t