When Billie reached the dormitory she found the girls waiting for her in an agitated group. There was not one of them who would have dared to approach Miss Walters after school hours unless it had been about a matter of life and death importance, and they had more than half expected that Billie would be carried back on a stretcher. When they found out what had really happened they welcomed Billie as a hero should be welcomed. They lifted her on their shoulders and carried her round the dormitory, chanting school songs till a warning hiss from one of the girls near the door sent them scuttling. By the time Miss Arbuckle reached the dormitory, they were bent decorously over their text-books, seeking what knowledge they might discover! Next morning, true to her word, Miss Walters herself superintended the packing of an immense basket with all the dainties at her command. There were chicken and roast beef sandwiches, half of a leg of lamb, two or three different kinds of jelly, some rice pudding left over from the night before, a big slab of cake, two quarts of fresh milk, and some beef tea made especially for the Haddons. And the girls, feeling more important than they had ever felt before in their lives, marched off after breakfast, during school hours—Miss Walters having personally excused them from class—joyfully bent upon playing the good Samaritan. “I never knew,” said Laura, as if she were making a great discovery, “that it could make you so happy to be kind to somebody else!” CHAPTER VI—TROUBLE It was the girls’ intention at first to leave the hamper of good things before the Haddons’ door so that Mrs. Haddon would have no chance of refusing the gift through pride. But when they came to the little cottage after half an hour of steady walking, they found to their dismay that Fate had taken a hand and spoiled all their plans. For Mrs. Haddon herself, a shawl over her head and looking even more worried and anxious than she had when they had seen her before, rounded the corner of the house and met them just as they reached the door. For a moment the girls had a panicky impulse to drop the basket and run, but on second thought they decided that that would be just about the worst thing they could possibly do. And while they were trying to think up something to say, Mrs. Haddon took the whole situation entirely out of their hands. At first she did not seem to recognize them, but the next instant her face lighted up with relief and she opened the door of the cottage, beckoning them to enter. “Just stay here in the kitchen a minute where it’s warm,” she directed them in a strained tone, and before the girls had time to draw their breath she had disappeared from the room, leaving the classmates alone.