At that moment the gong rang and hands flew to straightening hair and belts and ruffles preparatory to starting the afternoon classes.
"Well, all I have to say is," said Nellie as they turned toward the door, "that I hope your strange man stays where he belongs, Billie, and doesn't come back here."
"So say we all of us," said Connie, adding with a shudder: "Ugh! Your story about the 'Codfish' last night, Billie—and now this! It's enough to scare a person to death."
"There you go blaming me again," said Billie plaintively.
In the weeks that followed the girls very nearly forgot about the unknown man, who certainly had no business roaming around Three Towers Hall after midnight.
The only thing the chums did not like about the boarding school was the Twin Dill Pickles. The latter were getting more and more miserly—insisting that the girls were getting too much to eat and that they should be allowed a great deal less liberty. In short, if the twin teachers had had their way Three Towers might have been a prison instead of a boarding school.
"However," said Billie one day, after Miss Cora Dill had been unusually unpleasant, "perhaps we need the Dill Pickles. If we didn't have them we might be too happy."
The girls from North Bend had now become fully settled at the school. They had made a number of other friends, but so far their enemies seemed to be confined to Amanda Peabody and her constant companion, Eliza Dilks. Except Billie, that is, who added Miss Cora Dill and Rose Belser to her enemy list. Amanda was becoming known as the sneak of the school, but for this she did not seem to care.
"I wouldn't want such a reputation as that," said Laura one day.
"Nor I, either," answered Billie.