“Oh, father!” cried Milly, “what made their boat do like that?  And did they get into yours?”

“There was a great hole in the bottom of their boat, Milly, and the water was coming through it, and making the boat so heavy that it was sinking down and down into the lake, just as a stone would sink if you threw it in.  How the hole came there we never quite knew:  I thought they must have knocked their boat against a sharp rock—­in some parts of the lake there are rocks under the water which you can’t see—­and the rock had made the hole; but other people thought it had happened in some other way.  However, there they were, and when I took them all into my boat you never saw such miserable little creatures as the two little girls were.  They were wet through, they were as white as little ghosts, and when they were safe in my boat they began to cry and shake so, poor little souls, though their father and I wrapped them up in our coats, that I did want their mother to come and comfort them.”

“Oh, but, father, you took them safe home to their mother, didn’t you?  And do tell me what she said.”

“They had no mother, Milly, they had only their father, who was with them.  But he was very good to them, and I think on the whole they were happy little girls.  The Christmas after that I got a little parcel one morning, and what do you think was in it?  Why, two photographs of the same little girls, looking so neat and tidy and happy, I could hardly believe they were really the same as the little drowned rats I had pulled out of the water.  Ask mother to show you the pictures when we get home; she has them somewhere.  Now, Olly, would you like to row?”

“Oh, father, don’t bump against any rocks,” said Milly, whose thoughts were very full of the little girls.

“Don’t you trouble your head about rocks, old woman.  I know a good deal more about this lake than those little girls’ father did, and I won’t take you into any harm.  Come along, Olly.”

Olly was helped along the boat by mother and Aunt Emma till his father caught hold of him and pulled him on to his seat, where he let him put his two small paws on one of the oars, and try what he could do with it.  Mr. Norton pulled too; but Olly thought it was all his doing, and that it was really he who was making the boat go.

“Don’t we go fast, father?” he cried out presently, his little face flushed with pleasure and excitement.  “You couldn’t row so fast without me, could you, father?”

“You little fly-on-the-wheel,” said his father, smiling at him.

“What does that mean, father?”

“Never mind, you’ll know when you’re bigger.  But now look, children, how close we are coming to the shore.  And quick, Milly, quick!  What do you see over there?”

Mr. Norton pointed over the water to a place where some green rushes were standing up out of the water, not very far from the edge.  What were those great white and gold things shining among the rushes; and what were those large round green leaves lying on the water all about them?