Around the gymnasium were all sorts of swinging ladders and standing ladders. There were punching bags and medicine balls; in fact, everything calculated to make strong healthy women of the girls who came to Three Towers Hall.
There was a swimming pool, also, and over this the girls went into raptures. They had had scarcely any opportunity to learn to swim in North Bend, and although on their visits to New York they had never failed—that is, in the summer time—to take a dip, or several of them, in the Atlantic Ocean, they had never learned to swim more than a few strokes at a time.
"A swimming pool!" cried Billie. "I suppose we might have known we would have one here. Now we can really learn to swim. I wonder," and so interested had she been with her own affairs that this was the first time she had even given the boys a thought, "if Chet and Teddy and Ferd have a swimming pool at Boxton Academy."
"Boxton Academy?" Rose took her up quickly, suddenly looking interested. "Do you know any one who goes there?"
"I should say we do," put in Laura proudly. "Billie's——"
"Billie?" Connie interrupted, looking puzzled.
"I'm 'Billie,'" Billie explained, with a laugh. "They call me 'Billie' for short."
"Never mind about that," Rose put in impatiently. "What were you saying about the boys?"
The girls looked at pretty, black-haired, pink-cheeked Rose, and Billie realized suddenly why it was she had not altogether liked the girl.
"She'll be friendly to almost any girl if she happens to like her brother," she thought, and instinctively she glanced at Laura. The latter must have had almost the same thought, for she gave Billie a meaning glance.