“Sounds just like Ted,” said Billie, with a smile.  Then her face sobered again as she realized the gravity of the situation.

“Of course I’ll have to make it good,” she said, going over to the pieces again and regarding them mournfully.  “But how in the world am I ever going to get together a hundred dollars?  It might just as well be a thousand as far as I’m concerned.”  The last was a wail.

“Won’t your father give you the money?” asked Laura, for to Laura’s father a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.

But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.

“He would if he could,” she said, “but I heard him say only the other day that times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know he is worried.  Oh, girls, I’m in a terrible fix!”

“I know you are, honey,” said Violet, coming over and putting a comforting arm about her.  “But there must be some way that we can fix things all right.”

“I’d like to know how,” grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomy view.  “We might,” she added generously, after a moment’s thought, “say that I broke it—­”

“Laura—­dear!” cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended or grateful for the generous suggestion.  “It’s wonderful of you, of course, but you know I couldn’t do that.”

“And there’s Amanda Peabody,” added Violet.  “She wouldn’t let us get away with anything like that.”

At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.

“Well,” cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to look hopeful, “I suppose it won’t do any good to stand here and look at the pieces.  Besides,” she added with a start, “we’ve been here a terribly long time, and we don’t want the janitor to lock us in.”

They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ran back and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.

“What are you going to do?” asked Violet, regarding her curiously.

“What does it look as if I were doing?” asked Billie, reaching for an old newspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket.  “I might as well have the evidence of my crime.  Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs.”

“Do you know where she lives?” asked Laura, stooping and helping Billie at her task.

“She sent me there one time to get some papers,” Billie explained, as she rose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package.  “It’s a boarding house on Main Street, only a few blocks from here.”

“Shall we go there now?” asked Violet as they closed the door softly behind them and started down the hall.

“We might as well,” answered Billie, with a sigh.  “The sooner I get it over with, the better I’ll feel.  But oh, that hundred dollars!”

“Never mind, we’ll get it if we have to steal it,” said Laura firmly, as they came out into the flower-sweet air.

“That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire,” remarked Violet, at which the girls had to laugh.