h I'd done it. I wish I'd done it. Oh, how I envy you, Rona!"
cried Ulyth, regarding her friend with wide shining eyes of admiration.

Miss Teddington, pale but very self-controlled, had taken command of the
situation. Eight people were thoroughly wet through and bedraggled, and
must be hurried to camp and dried, and given hot drinks as speedily as
possible. The rescuers needed cosseting as much as the rescued. Madge
and Marion were shivering and trembling, and Rona, now the excitement of
her sudden dash was over, looked more shaky than she would allow.

"We must tuck them up in blankets," said Miss Teddington. "First Aid
Corps on duty, please! The difficulty is going to be how to get their
clothes properly dried in a place like this."

Mrs. Arnold, with Miss Bowes to look after her, went to the farm to seek
fresh garments. As for the girls, there was nothing for it but to go to
bed for an hour or two, while a band of servers lighted a good fire,
wrung the water from the drenched articles of clothing, and held them
to the blaze. Blankets were commandeered freely from other beds, and
piled round the seven heroines, who, propped up with pillows, each had a
kind of reception as she sipped her hot cocoa.

"We all of us forgot about the boat," said Rona suddenly. "It's drifting
upside down, and the oars are anywhere."

"Never mind. David Lewis will get it somehow, I suppose. It will drift
towards the bank, and he'll wade for it."

"Where did you learn to swim like that, Rona?"

"In the lake at home. We had one nearly as big as this close to our
farm."

"The Cuckoo's turned up trumps," murmured Alice Denham. "I didn't know
she was capable of it."

"Then it only shows how extremely stupid and unobservant you are,"
snapped Ulyth.

The servers declared afterwards that drying clothes round a bonfire was
the most exciting duty they had ever performed. Gusts of wind blew the
flames in sudden puffs, necessitating quick snatching away of garments
in the danger zone. Shoes were the most difficult of all, and needed
copious greasing to prevent their growing stiff.

"I wonder if the Ancient Britons went through this performance?" said
Winnie Fowler. "Did they have to hold their skin garments round
camp-fires? Thank goodness, we've got these things dry at last! We're
only in the nick of time. Here comes the rain."

It was a melancholy truth. The Welsh mountains have a perverse habit of
attracting clouds, even in June; the s