“Not a regular date,” answered Laura. “But it will be in a week or two I think. We’ll have to have time to get acquainted with the folks again and have our clothes fixed up——”
“And then Connie’s coming on to North Bend,” Vi added eagerly. “And we’ll all go together from there to the coast. Oh dear, I can’t wait to start.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to,” said Billie, with a sigh, “since we haven’t even reached home yet.”
“That reminds me,” said Laura, turning upon Billie accusingly. “What were you doing standing in the hall just now and looking as though you had lost your last friend when Vi and I came along and woke you up? Come on, 'fess up.”
Billie could not think for a moment what she had been doing, then she remembered Miss Arbuckle and the rather peculiar way the teacher had thanked her for the return of the album.
She told the girls about it, and they listened with interest while the boys looked as if they would like to have known what it was all about.
“Now I wonder——” Laura was beginning when Billie suddenly caught her hand and pointed to the road.
“Look!” she cried. “It’s Hugo Billings, our sad, faced man again. Oh, girls, I wish we could do something for him.”
She leaned far out the window, smiled and waved her hand to the man, who was standing moodily by the roadside. At sight of her he straightened up and an answering smile flashed across his thin face, making him look so different that the girls were amazed.
But when they looked back at him again a few seconds later his smile had gone and he was staring after them gloomily.