om her, fortunately, otherwise she might have been
seriously hurt.

"Take the helm, Archie," shouted Will, as he tore off his shoes, and was
over after her in a twinkling. Cricket rose to the surface, and struck
out bravely, but her clothes hampered her, and she could do little more
than keep herself up. In a few moments Will reached her, and Archie
brought the boat around, so there were but a few strokes to swim before
they could reach the oar which Edna and Eunice had seized and held out.
By this they drew themselves up to the gunwale of the boat.

It all passed so quickly that in five minutes from the time when Auntie
Jean had first spoken to Cricket, the dripping adventurers were in the
boat again. There had been no real danger, for Cricket could easily have
kept herself up till one of the boys could come to her, but the children
felt very much excited, for all that, over the "rescue," as they called
it.

In the small quarters of a little catboat, it is not exactly pleasant
to have two dripping individuals as members of the crew, and the others
began to draw themselves, feet and all, up on to the seat.

"Now, water-babies," began Auntie Jean, but Archie interrupted:

"Do pitch them out again, and let them swim home. They'll swamp the boat
directly. Here, bail out, Edna," tossing her the sponge, which she
caught and threw at Cricket, saying, "I can't get down in all that
water. Your feet are wet, already, Cricket."

"It's too bad," said Cricket, meekly. "Couldn't you really tie a rope
around me, auntie, and drag me along? I wouldn't mind. I couldn't swim
all the way in, for I'd get tired, but I wouldn't mind being tied on
behind."

"You're pretty bad, but we won't make a tow of you this time," said
auntie, merrily. "I can't say what I'll do next time, though. Now we
must get off those wet clothes, and wring them out, and hang them up to
dry. You can put on your mackintosh."

Mackintoshes and shawls always formed part of the equipment of an all
day's sail, since at any time a squall might come up. Edna and Eunice
and Hilda held up a long shawl in a triangular fence around Cricket,
while she got out of most of her clothes. Auntie rubbed her dry, and
wrung out what she still had on, as best she could with another shawl,
and then she put on her mackintosh. Will had also been getting rid of
some of the superfluous water, but a boy's sailing dress is so
beautifully simple that a wetting more or less does not matte