“Baby turn too.  Baby turn, too,” she wept.

“I’ll go stay with her till Kent comes,” said Lydia, diving into the water as casually as if she were rising from a chair.

“I won’t stay in this awful boat alone!” shrieked Margery.

Lydia swam steadily to the shore, then turned.  Margery was standing up in the boat.

“Sit down!  Sit down!” cried Lydia.

Margery, beside herself with fear, tossed her arms, “I won’t stay in this old—­”

There was a great splash and a choking cry as Margery’s black braid disappeared beneath the water.

“And she can’t swim,” gasped Lydia.  “Kent!” she screamed, and made a flying leap into the water.  Her slender, childish arms seemed suddenly steel.  Her thin little legs took a racing stroke like tiny propellers.  Margery came up on the far side of the boat and uttered another choking cry before she went down again.  Lydia dived, caught the long black braid and brought the frenzied little face to the surface.  Margery immediately threw an arm around Lydia’s neck, and Lydia hit her in the face with a clenched small fist and all the strength she could muster.

“Let go, or I’ll let you drown.  Turn over on your back.  There isn’t a thing to be afraid of.”

Margery, with a sob, obeyed and Lydia towed her the short distance to the boat.  “There, catch hold,” she said.

Both the children clung to the gunwale, Margery choking and sobbing.

“I can’t lift you into the boat,” panted Lydia.  “But quit your crying.  You’re safe.  There’s Kent.”

The whole episode had taken but a few minutes.  Kent had heard the call and some note of need in it registered, after a moment, in his mind.  He ran back and leaped into the water.

He clambered into the flat boat and reaching over pulled Margery bodily over the gunwale.  The child, sick and hysterical, huddled into the bottom of the boat.

“Are you all right, Lyd?” he asked.

“Sure,” replied Lydia, who was beginning to recover her breath.

It was the work of a minute to ground the boat.  Then unheeding little Patience’s lamentations, the two children looked at each other and at Margery.

“I’ll run for her mother,” said Kent.

“And scare her to death!  She isn’t hurt a bit,” insisted Lydia.  “Margery, stop crying.  You’re all right, I tell you.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Kent, “let’s put her in Patience’s carriage, and carry her home.  The water she swallowed makes her awful sick at her stomach, I guess.”

The fright over, the old spirit of adventure, with an added sense of heroism, animated Kent and Lydia.

Margery was teased out of the boat and assisted into the perambulator, with her dripping white legs dangling helplessly over the end.  Little Patience’s tears were assuaged when she was placed in the doll buggy, with Margery’s doll in her arms.  Florence Dombey was tied papoose fashion to Lydia’s back.  The bicycle was hidden in the cave and with Kent wheeling Margery and Lydia, Patience, the procession started wildly for home.