"Tell me where, what?"

"My feelingth are hurt."

"She's alive! She's alive," cried Hazel, throwing impulsive arms about the
neck of her little friend.

"Your feelings are hurt? Well, dear, if that is all, you are a lucky
girl," smiled Miss Elting. "Did the automobile hit you?"

"Yeth."

At this juncture, Margery made her appearance in a wholly unexpected
manner. Margery in climbing the fence had caught her skirt on a nail. She
plunged headlong down the bank into the ditch, almost falling on Grace.

"Oh, oh!" groaned Margery.

Hazel, laughing almost hysterically in her joy at finding Grace alive,
quickly assisted Margery to her feet, wiping the dirt from Buster's
flushed face.

"She isn't hurt at all," laughed Margery, fixing a glance of inquiry on
Tommy's face.

"Tommy says her feelings are hurt," Miss Elting informed Buster.

"Then I am worse off than she. Because I tore my skirt and hurt my arm,
too. Catch me running on another wild goose chase like this one. I don't
believe the car hit you at all, Tommy Thompson."

"Yeth it did," protested Tommy. "Of courthe it did. I gueth I know. I felt
it."

"Stand up," commanded Miss Elting, placing both hands under the arms of
the girl and assisting her to her feet. "There! Now see if you can walk.
Of course you can," comforted the teacher. "The car never touched you. You
must have leaped out of the way just in time. Come, I will help you into
the road, then we will take you home. But where is Harriett? I heard she
was out here with you girls."

"I should not be here had not Tommy and Hazel dragged me out," declared
Margery. "Violent exercise is not good for one during the hot weather."

"It'th very good for you, Buthter," remarked Tommy wisely. "It ithn't good
for a growing girl to be thtout, tho I've heard."

"Don't worry. You will never suffer from being too stout," retorted
Margery. "You can't keep still long enough."

"Mith Elting, I've been thitting here in the ditch for ever and ever tho
long and not thaying a word, and Buthter thayth I can't keep thtill."

"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?"
demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."

"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like
to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."

"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course
Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be