ose contents of rare old coins and postage stamps
had brought Billie in nearly five thousand dollars in cash. The money had
enabled Billie to replace a statue which she had accidentally broken a
little while before and had also given her the chance to go to Three
Towers Hall, a good boarding school, and Chet the opportunity to go to
the Boxton Military Academy, which was only a little over a mile from
Three Towers Hall.

The good times the girls had at school--and some bad times, too--have
been told of in the second book of the series, called, "Billie Bradley at
Three Towers Hall."

In North Bend, where the girls had always lived, there lived also two
other girls, Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks. These girls were sneaks and
tattletales of the worst order and were thoroughly disliked by all the
girls and boys with whom they had come in contact.

When the chums had heard that Amanda was to accompany them to Three
Towers they were absolutely dismayed, for they expected that she would
spoil all the fun. Amanda had done her best to live up to the
expectations of the girls, but try as she would, she had not been able to
spoil entirely the fun. And this very failure had, of course, made her
and her chum, Eliza Dilks, furious.

Both Three Towers Hall and Boxton Military Academy had been built on the
banks of the beautiful Lake Molata, and the girls and boys had spent many
happy hours rowing upon the lake in the fall and skating upon it in the
winter.

But the most amazing thing that had happened to them at Three Towers had
been the capture of the man the girls called "The Codfish." This rascal
had attempted to steal Billie's precious trunk in the beginning, but
Billie and the boys had given chase in an automobile and had succeeded in
recovering the trunk. They had also succeeded in getting a good look at
the man, whose hair was red, eyes little and close together, mouth wide
and loose-lipped. It was this last feature that had given the thief his
name with the boys and girls. For the mouth certainly resembled that of a
codfish.

Later the "Codfish" had turned up again near Three Towers Hall, had
robbed one of the teachers of her purse when she was returning from town,
and had later succeeded in making off with a great many valuables from
Boxton Military Academy.

The girls never forgot how, with the aid of the boys, they had captured
the Codfish and turned him over to the police. Though, as Laura said, the
thief had been