CHAPTER X

TWO OF A KIND

Several days had passed, and the girls were at last actually looking
forward to the end of the school term and to the Danvers bungalow on
Lighthouse Island!

The graduates were running around excitedly in the last preparations for
graduation with the strange look on their young faces that most graduates
have, half exultation at the thought of their success, half grief at
being forced to leave the school, the friends they had made, the scenes
they had loved.

Just the day before the one set for graduation Teddy ran over to tell the
girls some wonderful news. He was able to see only Billie, for the other
girls had been busy with their lessons. But that was very satisfactory to
Teddy.

As soon as the lunch gong rang Billie had called the girls together and
eagerly she told them what Teddy had told her.

"Paul Martinson's father gave him a beautiful big motor boat--a cruising
motor boat," she told the girls. "Paul got the highest average in his
class this term, you know, and his father has given him the motor boat as
a sort of prize."

"A motor boat!" cried Vi, breathlessly. "That's some prize."

"But, Billie, what's that got to do with us?" asked Laura practically.

"It hasn't much to do with us," said Billie, her face pink with
excitement. "But it has a great deal to do with the boys. Paul Martinson
has asked Chet and Ferd and Teddy to go with him and his father on a
cruise this summer."

She paused from lack of breath, and the girls looked at her in amazement.

"My, that's wonderful for them," said Laura after a minute, adding a
little regretfully: "But I suppose it means that we won't see very much
of the boys this summer."

"Oh, but that's just what it doesn't mean!" Billie interrupted eagerly.
"Don't you see? Why, Teddy said that it would be the easiest thing in the
world to stop off at Lighthouse Island some time and see us girls."

The girls agreed that it was all perfectly wonderful, that everything was
working just for them, and that this couldn't possibly help being the
most wonderful summer they had ever spent.

They did not have as much time to think about it as they would have
liked, however, in the busy excited hours that followed. Right after the
graduating exercises all the girls were to start for their homes, except
the few who expected to spend the summer at Three Towers Hall.

Many of the relatives and friends of the g