"Girls," she cried, plumping herself down between Laura and Vi on the bed, narrowly missing the latter's feet, "I've just got a letter—there are some for you girls down in the box, too—and what do you think the folks are going to do this summer?"
The girls said they could not possibly guess, and before any of them would have had a chance to, anyway, she rattled on again:
"Mother and Dad are going to open our cottage at Lighthouse Island again—we haven't been there for several summers. My old Uncle Tom runs the lighthouse there, and he's a perfect darling. But this is the real thing," she paused and regarded them with sparkling eyes. "Mother says there will be plenty of room in the cottage for two or three of my school chums if I'd like to have them. Think of that—if I'd like to have them!"
The girls sat up and regarded Connie doubtfully. "What do you mean?" stammered Billie.
"What do I mean, you little goose?" said Connie impatiently. "Don't you know I'm asking you and Laura and Vi to go with me?"
"A summer on an island with a lighthouse!" Billie murmured, while Laura and Vi looked as if they could not believe their ears. "Now I know I'm going to just die of it."
"What?" asked Connie curiously.
"Joy," said Billie.
And whether she did actually die of joy or not—somehow one is rather certain that she did not—will be told in the next book of Billie's adventures, entitled, "Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island; or, The Mystery of the Wreck."
Lighthouse Island was certainly a queer spot, and the girls had any number of unusual adventures there.