Peabody dance well.”

   “Oh, come, Billie, that’s too much!” laughed Teddy, swinging her on to the floor and giving her what she called a heavenly dance.

   And indeed what could have been better fun than this dance on a smooth floor so large that it did not seem crowded, to the best of music, with a partner

   who was a perfect dancer, and—though Billie did not say this to herself—by a girl who was herself as light and graceful a dancer as was on the floor?

   All things must end, even the most perfect day in a lifetime, as Vi called it, and finally the girls had been tucked into the carryall and were once more back at Three Towers Hall, ready, with a new day, to take up the routine of school life once more.

   Several days had passed, and the girls were at last actually looking forward to the end of the school term and to the Danvers bungalow on Lighthouse Island!

   The graduates were running around excitedly in the last preparations for graduation with the strange look on their young faces that most graduates have, half exultation at the thought of their success, half grief at being forced to leave the school, the friends they had made, the scenes they had loved.

   Just the day before the one set for graduation Teddy ran over to tell the girls some wonderful news. He was able to see only Billie, for the other girls had been busy with their lessons. But that was very satisfactory to Teddy.

   As soon as the lunch gong rang Billie had called the girls together and eagerly she told them what Teddy had told her.

   “Paul Martinson’s father gave him a beautiful big motor boat—a cruising motor boat,” she told

   the girls. “Paul got the highest average in his class this term, you know, and his father has given him the motor boat as a sort of prize.”

   “A motor boat!” cried Vi, breathlessly. “That’s some prize.”

   “But, Billie, what’s that got to do with us?” asked Laura practically.

   “It hasn’t much to do with us,” said Billie, her face pink with excitement. “But it has a great deal to do with the boys. Paul Martinson has asked Chet and Ferd and Teddy to go with him and his father on a cruise this summer.”

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