lighting
right in the midst of the group of eager children, each of whom was
trying to get up-stairs first, and in a moment everybody lay on top of
everybody else, at the foot of the staircase.

Will, meantime, found his feet, and went to Cricket's rescue. It was
dark in the trunkroom, under the eaves, but there was light enough to
see Cricket, with one leg stretched out straight, and the other one so
firmly wedged into the hole in the floor that she could not move.

"My leg feels as George W.'s head must have when he was caught in the
tomato can," said Cricket, as Will drew up. "It's a pretty tight
squeeze. I don't believe there's any skin left on it. I just came up
quickly, and I couldn't see very well, and the first thing I knew my
foot slipped into a hole, and there was not any floor there, and I
slumped through."

"Are you hurt? Is Cricket hurt?" cried everybody, scrambling in, in hot
haste.

"Not much," said Cricket, ruefully, feeling her barked knee. "I came
down pretty hard on my elbow, and I nearly knocked it up to the top of
my head, and my back feels funny, but I'm _not_ hurt, not a bit!"

"What a mercy the child didn't fall all the way through, and go down on
the lower floor," said grandma, who had just arrived on the scene.

"Why, I couldn't," said Cricket, surprised. "My other leg stopped me."

CHAPTER X.

THE ECHO CLUB.

Eunice and Edna went sauntering along the beach, with arms around each
other's waists. They were bending their steps towards one of their
favourite retreats, under some big rocks. It was high tide, and the
water lay dimpling and smiling in the sunlight. Down beside the dock,
Will and Archie were giving their sailboat, the _Gentle Jane_, a
thorough cleaning and overhauling. Cricket was--the girls didn't know
exactly where.

"There she is now," said Eunice, as they came around the rocks. Cricket
lay in her favourite attitude, full length on the sand, in which her
elbows were buried, with a book under her nose. She sat up as the girls
came nearer.

"I have an idea," she announced, beamingly.

"_Very_ hot weather for ideas!" said Eunice, fanning herself with her
broad-brimmed hat.

"Eunice, you're dreadfully brilliant, aren't you? Anyway, I _have_ an
idea, and I just got it from 'Little Women.'"

Edna threw herself on the sand. "Don't let's do it, if we have to _do_
anything," she said, fanning likewise.

"Now, you're brilliant. But you're a lazybones, you know. Te