Before they had fairly realized she was going, she was gone, and the girls and Miss Walters turned back to the Hall.
“Bother the old snow,” said Laura crossly. “I always liked it before, but now I hate it.”
They were all glad when the warmth of Three Towers Hall closed in about them again. Miss Walters said a few words to them about saying nothing of this affair to any one. Then she dismissed them to the dormitory while she herself hurried off to do a little work that she had neglected all day. For around examination time, Miss Walters was not always free, even on Sunday.
Some of the girls had seen Billie and Laura and Vi come in with Miss Walters, and they demanded to know what “all the excitement was about.” And the fact that the girls would not talk made their classmates all the more curious.
Connie was the only one to whom they would tell the story, for they knew that they could trust her as they trusted themselves.
“And it’s still snowing,” mourned Billie, as she cleared a space on the misted window and looked out at the snow-covered world. “It looks as if we shouldn’t get out of here for weeks!”
Billie’s gloomy prophecy was fulfilled. The storm developed into one of the worst blizzards that part of the country had ever known, and for almost two weeks the occupants of Three Towers were practically house-bound.
It was good that the school boasted a well-stocked larder. Otherwise the girls might actually have gone hungry. And they wondered a great deal about Polly Haddon and her little brood.
“Suppose she hasn’t enough in the house to eat?” worried Vi. “Why, they may starve!”
“Maybe she used the gold pieces we left her to stock up when she saw the blizzard coming on,” suggested Billie, and the suggestion comforted them a great deal.