sed
angrily. "The others can keep on spoiling her if they want to, but I'm
not going to kowtow all the time. They ape her every action,--_I'll_
show her that one of us has independence."

Keyed up by this formula, repeated mentally a great many times, Kitty
began to indulge in heroics. Aching to excite some admiration for
herself she did "stunts" in the water that would have terrified her
the day before. Once she plunged her bright head under the water and
kept it there until she was almost black in the face, in an effort to
prove her "staying powers." It only frightened the other girls and
went apparently unnoticed by Blue Bonnet for whose benefit the test
had been made.

[Illustration: "'_I_ BELIEVE THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN TO SWIM IS TO DIVE IN
HEAD-FIRST.'"]

"I'll show her we're not all 'fraid-cats!" Kitty resolved
passionately. "I believe," she announced to the girls, in a tone loud
enough to reach Blue Bonnet, who was doing an overhand stroke in the
quiet water of the opposite bank. "_I_ believe the only way to learn
to swim is to dive in head-first--then you just _have to_. Big boys
always toss little fellows into the middle of the pool and make 'em
scramble back--they always do it right off. Here goes!"

She poised only for a moment on the bank, not daring to give herself
time to reconsider. Blue Bonnet shot a quick glance at her; she saw at
once that Kitty had chosen too shallow a spot,--a dive at that point
might be dangerous. At any other time she would have shouted a hasty
warning, but now she hesitated,--and in that second Kitty shot
head-first into the water.

The girls gave a gasp, and kept their eyes on the spot where she had
gone down, waiting to see the red locks reappear. But the water closed
over Kitty,--and stayed closed.

"Blue Bonnet!" they shouted shrilly, "she hasn't come up!"

Blue Bonnet felt a queer tightening around her heart; she had heard of
boys breaking their necks that way. With a few powerful strokes she
reached the shallows and felt for Kitty. "Help me girls--quick!" she
cried, "she's struck her head on the bottom." She had seized Kitty by
this time and held the girl's head above the water, but the body
hung limp and heavy in her arms. The girls sprang to help and among
them they managed to lift the slight figure to the bank and lay it
tenderly on the soft grass. Kitty's face was deathly white, and from a
gash on the top of her head a trickling stream was dyeing her bright
loc