dress, Hilda," urged Cricket. "We usually expect to get wet when
we go into the water, anyway."

"Mother, may I go out to swim?" sang Archie, teasingly.

"Come on, Hilda. Just go right forward, ker-chunk," and Cricket made a
run and threw herself full length in the shallow water. She rolled over
and over, and came up sputtering, and laughing. "Don't be afraid, you
goosey girl."

"I'm not a goosey girl. Suppose I should go out there and get drowned?"

"You _can't_ drown. Archie, and Will, and I, all can swim, and we'll
save you. Will taught me this summer. It's lovely," and Cricket led
Hilda, hanging back and protesting, into the water, ankle deep.

The truth really was, that Hilda did not want to wet her pretty new
bathing-suit. She was such a careful, orderly little person, that she
did not like the idea of doing anything so untidy. Besides, Cricket's
dripping, clinging skirt looked very uncomfortable.

Just then, Will and Archie, at a private signal, threw themselves,
splash, into the water on each side of her, spattering her well, and
Cricket, seizing the opportunity, cried out:

"Now, you're a little wet, you must go under right away, or else you'll
take cold," and Hilda yielded very unwillingly, and protesting that she
was freezing to death. She squealed and choked as the boys ducked her
under the water, and she really thought for one dreadful minute that her
last hour had come.

"If _this_ is bathing, I think it's _awful_," she said, with emphasis,
as soon as she could speak. The boys had piloted her as far as the
swimming raft, and, imitating Cricket's example, she climbed up on it,
trying to rub off her wet face with her wetter sleeve, and looking
perfectly miserable. "Archie, I've got to have a handkerchief, or a
towel, or something, to dry my face. Please bring me one."

The boys both laughed at her. "Oh, certainly," said Archie. "I'll
telephone to the laundry to send down a cartload right away. We usually
have Luke put a supply of clean ones on the raft, all ready for us. He
must have forgotten it this morning."

"You needn't laugh at me. I do hate to have my face stay wet."

"Dive again, then," advised Will, setting the example. "Come, Cricket,
race me to the rock and back again."

Cricket promptly dived, but Hilda could not be coaxed off her perch till
the others were ready to go in. So, altogether, the first bath was not a
great success, and Hilda almost made up her mind that she would never