She went toward the clerk with an uncertain, apologetic little smile that would have softened a much harder heart than his and said that she would like to engage rooms for herself and her friends.
Be it said to the credit of the clerk, who was rather a nice looking boy with sand colored hair and eyes to match, that he did not even smile.
Soberly he asked Billie how many rooms she would need, and Billie turned to the girls rather helplessly. Then it was Caroline Brant who came to her aid.
"We can sleep three in a room," she said, regarding the clerk gravely through her horn-rimmed spectacles. "So you can figure out just how many we'll need."
"If we could have cots put in the rooms," Billie ventured, "we could get more than three in one room."
"All right," the clerk answered, still unsmiling, while several people had gathered around and were looking on with interest. "If you don't mind cots I guess I can fix you up all right. It's lucky that it's winter," he added, a little twinkle creeping into his nice eyes, "and that the hotel isn't crowded, or we might have to turn somebody out."
He watched the girls go up the stairway to the rooms above--for they had decided they would rather walk than wait for the elevator--then turned to one of the men lounging near with a chuckle.
"Nice kids," he said, regarding the signatures in the big book before him written in unmistakably girlish hands. "If they weren't dressed so well, I'd say it was an orphan asylum out for an airing."
Meanwhile the girls had decided that they were more hungry than they were tired, and so merely stopped to drop their bags in their rooms and brush a little of the clinging snow from their clothing before setting forth in search of food.
They had decided to separate into groups and to eat in different places so as not to attract too much attention, and they were gathered on the sidewalk in front of the hotel wondering just what to do next when suddenly one of the girls gave a startled cry.
"Girls--no, it isn't--yes, it is!" she cried, clutching the girl beside her hysterically. "Look! There's Miss Walters!"
And Miss Walters--for it was indeed she--attracted by the hubbub as were some other passersby, looked at the girls first curiously, then in astounded amazement. To her startled vision it seemed as if all the girls in the world were gathered there on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. And they were her girls--the girls of Three Towers Hall!