CHAPTER VIII
STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
Chet and Billie were very careful to leave neither doors nor windows unlocked, and the rest of the week passed without further mishap.
Then one morning came a telegram from their parents saying that they would be home the next day.
"Goodness, now I have to get busy!" cried Billie, jumping up from the table in such a hurry that she very nearly upset Chet's coffee cup, thereby considerably surprising that boy.
"Say, do you think it's catching?" he asked, with a smile. "What's the matter with you, Billie?"
"Oh, of course you wouldn't understand—you're a boy," remarked his sister condescendingly, as she put on the becoming dust cap and pulled some gloves on her hands.
"Don't you see," she added, as Chet continued to stare at her, "that this house has to be immaculate before mother gets back? I've simply got to live up to my reputation."
"Never knew you had one," remarked Chet cruelly, as he turned back to his bacon and eggs with a relieved sigh. "If you need any help," he offered graciously, as Billie swept out of the room, "just call on me."
"Thank you, I don't," called back Billie, making a face at him over her shoulder.
And then followed such a whirlwind of sweeping and dusting and throwing about of furniture that poor Chet was dismayed and was forced to take refuge on the porch.
However, when Billie, flushed and breathless and very, very pretty, took him by the arm and led him about to admire her handiwork, he told her that she was "some wonder."
"Now how about lunch?" he asked, and Billie, appetite sharpened by work, enthusiastically agreed.
It seemed an eternity to wait until the next morning, but somehow the time came at last, finding brother and sister on tip-toe with excitement.
Long before it was time to go to meet the train, they were ready and waiting. Billie was swinging back and forth in the porch swing, grasping a cushion in each hand to keep her from jumping out, while Chet walked restlessly up and down.
"If you don't sit down," said Billie so suddenly that her brother jumped,
"I'll just scream."
"Well go ahead, if it will make you feel any better," invited Chet amiably. However, for the sake of peace he seated himself in one of the broad armed chairs.
"Isn't it train time yet?" asked Billie, as she had asked many times during the last fifteen minutes.
"Here," said Chet, handing over his watch, "take this and keep looking at it. My voice is getting hoarse saying 'no.'"
"But I don't see why we can't go down to the station anyway," argued Billie.
"Only that it's about a hundred times more comfortable to wait here."
"But we might miss the train," wailed Billie, and Chet jumped to his feet with a chuckle.
"Oh, come on," he cried. "We've missed the train several times according to you. In a minute you will almost have me worried."
"You're a dear old bear," said Billie, snuggling her arm into his as they set off.
"You certainly do have a way with you, Billie, that gets you what you want," he admitted, adding meaningly: "Besides, I'm thinking I'd better keep on the right side of you just now."
"Why?" asked Billie, puzzled.
"In case Aunt Beatrice left you something. You were her namesake, remember."
Billie glanced up at him, an eager look in her eyes. But her glance fell again and she shook his arm severely.
"What's the use of raising hopes?" she said dolefully, as a vision of the broken "Girl Reading a Book" rose reproachfully before her and she thought longingly of how happy she could be if it were only possible to replace it.
And there was Three Towers Hall—but she shook off the thought and had opened her mouth to speak when the sharp blast of an engine whistle made them jump.
"Chet," she gasped, "it's the train! We mustn't miss it."
"We can make it if we run," said Chet, as he took hold of her arm. "Come on! No, not that way—the short cut. That's the idea."
Warm and panting they came out upon the station platform just as the train drew in. They watched the passengers eagerly, but not at first seeing those they sought, had almost decided that they were coming on a later train when away down at the end of the platform, Billie espied a familiar hat.
"There they are! Mother!" she cried, as they came within hailing distance. "We thought you weren't on the train. Oh, what a fright we had!"
After the greetings were over Chet and Billie both noticed that their parents seemed to be in a state of suppressed excitement, and both of them wondered.
However, they had too much to talk about just then to do much wondering about anything, and they walked slowly toward home, asking and answering a very flood of questions.
Mrs. Bradley wanted to know how Billie had got along without her, at which both Chet and Billie tried to tell the story of Nellie Bane's collie at the same time and in the same breath.
When they had finished Mr. Bradley chuckled, but Mrs. Bradley looked grave.
"It happened to be funny," she said. "But it might have been very serious. I hope you were careful after that."
"Were we!" they cried, and Billie added with a laugh: "We locked and double locked all the windows and doors, and if it hadn't been for Chet I would have piled furniture against the doors. But we want to know what you've been doing," she cried, turning to her mother eagerly. "Tell us, please, quick. We've been waiting so long."
Again Mr. Bradley laughed and pinched his impatient young daughter's cheek.
"I think our news can wait till we get to the house," he said.
"But I can't," protested Billie.
"Anybody would think you really expected to hear something," chuckled Mr.
Bradley, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely over something.
"Oh, please," begged Billie, almost beside herself with impatience by this time—and Chet, in his quiet way, was just as bad. There was something about their mother's and father's manner that told them something was in the wind.
"I'm just dying by inches," went on Billie.
But this time it was Mrs. Bradley who interrupted.
"Here we are at home, dear," she said. "Can't you give Dad and me a chance to rest, and give us perhaps a cup of tea—"
"Oh, I'm a selfish old beast!" said Billie penitently. "I might have known you would be terribly tired after that long train ride!"
And still scolding herself she hurried them before her into the house and flew to find Debbie. She had not far to go, however, for Debbie was just lumbering, like a good-natured elephant, through the hall to greet her master and mistress. As soon as the greetings were over she lumbered back again to make the necessary tea.
Billie and Chet controlled their impatience, answering the questions their mother had to ask them about all that had happened while they had been away, for Mrs. Bradley had been anxious.
When they finally left the table and Mrs. Bradley led the way back into the library, Billie uttered a long sigh of relief.
"Well," said Mrs. Bradley, and they leaned forward eagerly, "we found that what we always supposed about the amount of money Aunt Beatrice had was right. She left only a few thousand, and that—queer soul that she was—she left to a missionary society."
"Oh!" cried Billie, and it must be admitted that she both felt and looked horribly disappointed. She had not known just how much she had hoped, both for herself and for Chet, until this moment. And Chet, poor fellow, felt just as bad, although he showed it less.
"Then she didn't leave anything either to you or Dad?" Chet asked.
"No. But she did leave something to you and Billie," was Mrs. Bradley's startling announcement.
Billie and Chet looked at one another as if to be sure that they had heard aright.
"You say she left us something?" cried Billie breathlessly.
"Yes. But don't let your hopes run away with you," Mr. Bradley warned them, "for it wasn't very much."
"Oh, tell us," the two commanded eagerly and in unison.
"She left a gold watch to Chet," Mrs. Bradley told them. "It is really a very beautiful watch, Chet, and worth a good deal of money. And to Billie—" She paused for emphasis and Billie wriggled impatiently. "And to Billie she left her rambling old homestead at Cherry Corners."
"A homestead at Cherry Corners!" gasped Billie, unable to believe her ears while Chet looked interested. "What sort of a house is it, Mother?"
"I haven't been there for a number of years," replied her mother, knitting her brows in an effort to recall the details of Billie's queer inheritance. "As I remember it, it is an old-fashioned rambling affair. It must have been considered rather handsome in its palmy years, and it has been in the Powerson family for generations. In fact, I believe it dates back to revolutionary days. It has great large rooms, and rather spooky, dark hallways. I'm afraid I wasn't very much impressed with it the first time I saw it," she finished, with a smile.
"Wh-what a funny thing to leave me," said Billie, her eyes big and round with wonder. Then she added, without thinking—as Billie always did: "Oh, don't I wish she had left me a hundred dollars instead! It would have been much more useful!"