left here," Billie broke in quickly. "Laura wants to know
if you will let us in long enough to get it."

"Sure, an' I will that," Mr. Heegan assured them, leading the way into
the school yard and pulling out his bunch of keys. "It must be a verra
important book," he added, smiling at them as he fitted the key in the
lock, "to be bringing you back to school after school's out."

"It was a gift from Father," Laura explained. "And I wouldn't lose it
for anything."

"All right, there you go," said the good-natured janitor, swinging the
door wide for them. "I'm goin' home, but I'll be comin' back in a few
minutes to lock up. You'd best not be stayin' here then," he added, with
a twinkling backward glance at them, "or it will be locked up for the
night you'll be."

"We won't be more than a minute," Violet assured him, and jubilantly the
girls ran through the empty, echoing hall and stopped before a door at
the farther end.

"It seems so horribly quiet," said Violet, looking around at them with
her hands on the door knob. "It makes you feel like a thief."

"Must be your guilty conscience," said Laura wickedly. "Come on, Vi;
we've got to hurry if we don't want to be 'locked in for the night.'"

"Are you sure you left the book here, Laura?" asked Billie, as
Violet opened the door and they crowded in. "It would be too bad if
it were gone--"

But a cry from Laura interrupted her.

"There it is," she said, running to a desk at the farther end of the room
and picking up from an inner corner a prettily bound book. "Just the very
place I left it, too. My, but I'm glad to get it back again."

"What do you think you're doing, Billie Bradley?" inquired Laura a
minute later, for Billie had seated herself at the teacher's desk and was
looking as severe as she knew how.

"Take your seats," she now commanded, rapping vigorously on the desk and
fixing them with her best school-teacher stare. "Violet Farrington, go to
the board--"

But she got no further, for with an indignant cry the girls had rushed on
her. Dropping both her air of command and her dignity, Billie scurried
wildly around the room, keeping the desks between her and her pursuers.

"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" she taunted them, as she
dodged nimbly in and out among the desks. "I could keep this up all day,
I could--"

"Oh, you could, could you?" cried Laura, and, making a desperate lunge,
she almost had her hand on Billie's dress. "We'll see about th