When they reached their rooms upstairs they felt too excited for sleep, and sat for a long time talking over the incident.

They could laugh now at their surprise in meeting friendly Bruce instead of a very unfriendly house-breaker, but more than once both of them caught themselves listening for sounds in the silent house below.

“It was just luck,” said Billie, as she rose at last to go to bed, “that it was Bruce that happened to find that open window instead of—­of some one else!”

CHAPTER VIII

STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS

Chet and Billie were very careful to leave neither doors nor windows unlocked, and the rest of the week passed without further mishap.

Then one morning came a telegram from their parents saying that they would be home the next day.

“Goodness, now I have to get busy!” cried Billie, jumping up from the table in such a hurry that she very nearly upset Chet’s coffee cup, thereby considerably surprising that boy.

“Say, do you think it’s catching?” he asked, with a smile.  “What’s the matter with you, Billie?”

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t understand—­you’re a boy,” remarked his sister condescendingly, as she put on the becoming dust cap and pulled some gloves on her hands.

“Don’t you see,” she added, as Chet continued to stare at her, “that this house has to be immaculate before mother gets back?  I’ve simply got to live up to my reputation.”

“Never knew you had one,” remarked Chet cruelly, as he turned back to his bacon and eggs with a relieved sigh.  “If you need any help,” he offered graciously, as Billie swept out of the room, “just call on me.”

“Thank you, I don’t,” called back Billie, making a face at him over her shoulder.

And then followed such a whirlwind of sweeping and dusting and throwing about of furniture that poor Chet was dismayed and was forced to take refuge on the porch.

However, when Billie, flushed and breathless and very, very pretty, took him by the arm and led him about to admire her handiwork, he told her that she was “some wonder.”

“Now how about lunch?” he asked, and Billie, appetite sharpened by work, enthusiastically agreed.

It seemed an eternity to wait until the next morning, but somehow the time came at last, finding brother and sister on tip-toe with excitement.

Long before it was time to go to meet the train, they were ready and waiting.  Billie was swinging back and forth in the porch swing, grasping a cushion in each hand to keep her from jumping out, while Chet walked restlessly up and down.

“If you don’t sit down,” said Billie so suddenly that her brother jumped, “I’ll just scream.”

“Well go ahead, if it will make you feel any better,” invited Chet amiably.  However, for the sake of peace he seated himself in one of the broad armed chairs.