But Miss Walters was looking through and beyond Laura, and her gaze came quickly back to Billie. Polly Haddon’s eyes were fixed on the girl, too, with passionate intensity. “Tell us what you mean, Billie,” commanded Miss Walters. “Quickly!” Billie, remembering suddenly that Miss Arbuckle was the only one of the faculty who knew of her adventure with Teddy, was embarrassed for a moment. But she plunged bravely in and told them the whole story from beginning to end, sparing no details. Miss Walters was intensely interested, and when she had finished even Polly Haddon looked encouraged. The latter wished to set forth at once in search of the cave, but Miss Walters proposed a plan that appealed to everybody, especially the hungry girls. “Wait and have lunch with me in my rooms,” she said to Mrs. Haddon. “For it is almost lunch time now. Then we can start to hunt for the cave as soon as we have finished.” Mrs. Haddon looked tempted, but she shook her head. “There are the children,” she said. “And little Peter. There is no one with them.” But Miss Arbuckle settled this objection by offering to go over and stay with the children and see that they were well taken care of during their mother’s absence. “I was a governess and sort of children’s nurse combined, at one time, you know,” and she smiled graciously upon the mother. “And I assure you that I know how to care for children.” Almost upon her words the lunch gong rang, and Miss Walters thereupon dismissed the girls to the dining-hall. “Remember, we will start directly after lunch,” she said to them as they fled. “Billy, it’s just like a story book or a movie!” cried Vi joyfully, as they took their places at the table among the noisy, chattering girls. “Are you certain you can find the cave again, Billie?” asked Laura, as she attacked her heaped-up plate of good things ravenously. Before Billie could answer Rose Belser leaned across the table and asked with a drawl where they had been keeping themselves all morning. “We’ve made a snowman,” she chuckled. “But we needed Billie’s artistic touch to make the face. I can’t get the nose to look right.” Instinctively the girls glanced out the window and saw that it was snowing. And they had never noticed it! “Why, it’s snowing, girls!” remarked Vi brilliantly. “It looks almost like a blizzard.” “Are you just waking up?” asked Connie Danvers, a little crossly. Connie was cross because it was the first time in her intimate friendship with the girls that they had had a secret from her. “Now I know you’re crazy.” Billie guessed at Connie’s grievance and, reaching over, she pressed the hand of her classmate under the table. “We’ll tell you all about everything to-night,” she promised, and Connie’s face brightened miraculously. The snowstorm did indeed look like the beginning of a blizzard, and as the girls went to get their wraps they worried not a little for fear this new development might put an end to their adventure.