Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance | Page 7

will help a little."
"Have you told him about it?" asked Chet.
"No. But I will to-night," she said, with a little sinking feeling. "I hate to tell him, awfully, but I suppose I'll have to."
"Well, don't worry anyway," said Chet, patting her shoulder reassuringly. "You know Dad says worry is a waste of time, because everything will all be the same a hundred years from now."
But Billie's shake of the head was very doubtful.
"I don't see how that helps me any--now," she said.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST HOPE
That afternoon Billie took herself and a book out on the porch and tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to forget her troubles. The more she tried to fix her attention on the printed page before her, the more the broken statue rose before her eyes until at last she closed the book with a slam and bounced impatiently in her seat.
"That horrid old 'Girl Reading a Book' has spoiled my whole summer for me," she said, her lips pouting rebelliously. "I wish I hadn't gone back to the old school anyway. I might have known it would bring me bad luck. Oh, here comes Laura," and her face brightened as she saw the familiar figure of her chum swinging up the street. "I wonder what she wants. Whatever it is, she seems to be in a terrible hurry about it."
"Hello, what's the rush?" she sang out, as Laura Jordon ran up the steps of the porch.
"It's--it's that--that Nanny goat Amanda Peabody!" cried Laura, panting a little, for she had indeed been in a hurry. "What do you think the old sneak has been up to now?"
"What?" queried Billie, as she moved over to make room for her chum in the seat beside her. "Telling tales again?"
"How did you guess it?" cried Laura, her face flushing with indignation. "And about you, Billie! Oh, I could have killed her!"
"Well, we expected it, didn't we?" Billie asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. "We knew when we saw her looking in at the window that that was exactly what she would do."
"Well, I know. But she went to the janitor about it." And Laura looked as if that in some way magnified the offense.
"Well, there wasn't any one else to go to," remarked Billie reasonably.
"Goodness! aren't you even mad about it?" asked Laura, her blue eyes snapping.
"Not particularly," replied Billie, for she was beginning to be terribly tired of the whole subject. How she hated that imbecile "Girl Reading a Book" and Amanda Peabody and--and--everybody!
"I got all over being angry with Amanda Peabody long ago," she said in answer to Laura's incredulous look. "If I should get that way every time she did anything, I'd never live to grow up!"
In spite of her indignation, Laura chuckled.
"I never did think of it in that way," she admitted, adding, after a minute's thought: "Billie, dear, haven't you thought of some way you might pay for the statue? I didn't sleep a wink last night for thinking of it."
"Neither did I," said Billie gloomily, forgetting that she had in reality slept very soundly. "Chet and I have started a fund with a dollar fifteen of his and seventy-five cents of mine. That's as far as we have got so far. I did think of Uncle Bill," she added slowly, mentioning a great uncle who occasionally visited them.
"Great! Uncle Bill!" repeated Laura, pricking up her ears. "The uncle who used to trot you on his knee and call you 'Bill's Billie'?"
"Yes," Billie nodded. "Uncle Bill and I were always good chums, and I think if I told him what a fix I'm in, he might be able to help. He has loads of money too."
"Billie," cried her chum rapturously, "why didn't you think of that before? Why, it's the very thing!"
"But I hate to ask him," sighed Billie, not sharing Laura's enthusiasm in the least. "I never had to ask anything of anybody before."
"Well, everything has to have a beginning," said Laura, lightly adding, as unconcernedly as she could: "I told Teddy about it last night."
"You did!" cried Billie, turning upon her while the color flooded her face. "Laura, what did you do that for?"
"You don't mind, do you?" queried Laura, wide-eyed. "I'm sure I never thought of your not wanting Teddy to know."
"Oh, I suppose it doesn't make any difference," sighed Billie, adding plaintively: "Only I don't like everybody to know how crazy I am."
"Teddy doesn't think you're crazy," said Laura, with a chuckle, regarding Billie out of the corner of her eye. "In fact, if I should tell you what he does think of you--"
"Oh, don't be foolish," almost snapped Billie, and again Laura chuckled inwardly.
"Well, you needn't be so cross," she said. "I can't help what Teddy does or thinks. Here he comes now," she added, glancing up the street.
"Oh, and I'm a