CHAPTER XV

TOMMY MAKES A DISCOVERY

A dozen girls sprang forward to the assistance of the unfortunate trio, but Harriet was ahead of them.  She grasped the Chief Guardian under the arms and lifted her to her feet, then taking a hand of Mr. McCarthy pulled him up with disconcerting suddenness.  He looked dazed and a little sheepish.

“It’s that mad girl Jane of mine,” he explained.

Mrs. Livingston’s face was flushed, her eyes snapped; then her angry expression softened and she burst out laughing.

“O Jane, Jane!  You will be the undoing of all of us before you have done.”

Jane, with her hair disheveled, stood ruefully surveying the scene.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Livingston, that you went over.  I didn’t want to make you fall down, but I just had to show Daddy how glad I was to see him.”

“You showed me all right, young lady.  Lucky, for us all that we had soft ground under us.  Mrs. Livingston, I suppose you’ll be telling me to take this mad-cap daughter of mine home with me.  I shouldn’t blame you if you did, and I don’t think I’d cry over it, for I want her.  No, I don’t mean that—­”

“Daddy!” rebuked Jane.

“I mean that she is better off here, and you are doing her a heap of good, Mrs. Livingston, even if she did give way to one of her old fits of violence just now.”

“Certainly not, Mr. McCarthy,” answered the Chief Guardian promptly.  “We all love Jane.  She is a splendid girl and we should miss her.  I certainly did miss her last summer, and now I should miss her more than ever.  I hope we shall have her with us for many summers; then one of these days, when she is older, she, too, will have a camp of girls to look after.”

“I feel very thorry for the camp,” broke in Tommy.

“You will have to buy a new camp stool, Daddy,” reminded Jane.  “I’m glad I’m not so stout that I break up the furniture every time I sit on it.”

“Yeth, Buthter doeth that,” said Tommy, nodding solemnly.

“And you, young lady, you’ve got some strength in those arms,” he said, turning to Harriet.  “The way you bounced me to my feet was a wonder.  Tommy, you haven’t shaken hands with your old friend.  Come here, my dear, and shake hands with me.”

“You were tho mixed up that I couldn’t tell which wath the hand to thhake,” replied Grace promptly.  “That wath what Jane callth a meth, wathn’t it?”

“It was.  Why, how do you do, Hazel—­and Margery, too?  Well, well! this is a delightful surprise.  How fine you all look.  And I hear you had a swim the other night, Harriet, and you, too, Tommy.  Well, well!  And you like the water, eh?”

“It is glorious,” breathed Harriet, instinctively glancing out to sea, where a flock of gulls were circling and swooping down in search of food.

“You won’t have to swim any more unless you wish to.  I’ve made different arrangements about that.”