e
beckoning and inviting the girls to come in and make themselves at home.

Which they did--immediately. All except Billie, who stepped back a moment
and gazed off through the dusk to the light in the lighthouse tower
glowing its warning to the travelers over the dark highways of the sea.

"I love it," she said, surprising herself by her fervor. "It looks so
bright and brave and lonely."

Then she stepped in after the others and almost ran into Connie, who was
coming back to get her.

"What were you doing all by yourself out there in the dark?" she asked
accusingly. "We thought you had run away or something."

"Goodness, where would I run to?" asked Billie, as they went upstairs
together arm in arm. "There's no place to run except into the ocean, and
I'd rather wait for that till I have my bathing suit on."

They found Mrs. Danvers and Laura and Vi in a large room as pretty and
comfortable as the room downstairs, though not quite so elaborate. Laura
and Vi were busily engaged in making themselves entirely at home.

Laura had her hat off and was fixing her hair in front of a mirror and Vi
was hanging up her coat in the closet.

"You see there's a connecting door between these two rooms," Mrs. Danvers
said in her pleasant voice; "so that you girls can feel almost as if you
were in one room."

Then as she caught sight of Billie and Connie in the doorway she beckoned
to them and disappeared into the next room, and with a laughing word to
Laura and Vi they followed her.

This was the room that she and Connie were to occupy, Billie found, and
she looked about her at the handsome mahogany furniture and dainty
dressing table fixings with interest.

But she was even more interested in seeing what Connie's mother looked
like in the light. She was not a bit disappointed, for Mrs. Danvers'
looks entirely matched her voice.

Her eyes were a wide laughing hazel, set far apart and fringed with dark
lashes. Her hair, for she had not worn a hat, was a soft brown, and the
night wind had whipped a pretty color into her face.

"She is awfully pretty. Not as pretty as my mother," Billie thought
loyally, "but awfully pretty just the same."

Billie must have been staring more than she knew, for suddenly Mrs.
Danvers--it seemed absurd to call her "Mrs." she looked so like a
girl--turned upon her and took her laughingly by the shoulders.

"So you're Billie Bradley," she said, her hazel eyes searching Billie's
brown ones. "Conn