Among other things North Bend boasted a jewelry factory, of which Raymond Jordon, Laura’s father, was the owner.

Billie’s father was the prominent Martin Bradley, well known among real estate and insurance men, and it was from him that Billie, whose real name was Beatrice, had taken her brown eyes and brown hair and even that merry, irrepressible imp of mischief that made Billie Bradley the most popular, best-loved girl in all North Bend.

Her mother, Agnes Bradley, quiet, sincere and beautiful to look upon, kept just the check on her gay young daughter that the young girl needed.

Billie had a brother, Chetwood Bradley, commonly known as “Chet”—­a boy as different from his sister as night is from day, yet, in his own more quiet way, extremely attractive.

Laura’s brother, Theodore, known to his intimates as Teddy, was a handsome boy, as full of wild spirits as Billie herself.  Teddy had entertained a lively admiration for Billie Bradley since he was seven and she was six.  Teddy was tall for his fifteen years, and had already made a name for himself in the field of athletics.

The third of the chums was Violet Farrington, a daughter of Richard Farrington, a well-known lawyer of North Bend, and Grace Farrington, a sweet, motherly woman.

Nearly everybody loved Violet, who was tall and dark and sweet-tempered.  She also acted as a sort of perpetual peace-maker between brown-eyed Billie and blue-eyed Laura.

So now she was acting again on this glorious day in July when the roses were out and the birds were singing and the sun was shining its brightest.

“What shall we do if we can’t get in?” suggested Billie, waving her hand to Nellie Bane, another girl in her class, who passed on the opposite side of the street.

“I suppose we’d have to go home again,” answered Laura, adding with a little worried frown:  “Oh, I do hope I can get the book.  I wouldn’t lose it for anything.”

“There goes Amanda Peabody,” cried Violet suddenly, clutching Billie’s arm.

“That makes no difference in my young life,” Billie slangily assured her.

“As long as she goes, it’s all right,” added Laura, glancing after the lanky figure of Amanda Peabody as the girl swung off in the other direction.

Amanda Peabody was not popular with the girls.  Nor was she with anybody, for that matter.  As far as the girls knew, she had not one friend in the whole school.

Amanda was red-haired and freckled; and while these attributes alone could not have accounted for her unpopularity, she added to them a tendency to spy upon the other girls and then run and tell what she had seen or heard.

It was this last characteristic that no fair-minded girl would tolerate and so Amanda had lived in practical ostracism ever since she had come to North Bend two years before.

“I don’t think we ought to be too hard on her,” said Violet, as they turned the corner that brought the school into view.  “She can’t help her mean disposition, I suppose.  And anyway, Miss Beggs says there’s always some good to be found in everybody.”