ing."

"If," observed Ed, significantly.

CHAPTER XVIII

BELLE SWIMS

The tide was just right. In their newest bathing suits the motor girls had
assembled on the beach in the hot sun. Their white arms and necks showed
the winter of indoors, but their faces had already taken on the tan of the
seaside. Soon arms and necks would be in accord.

The boys were out on the float, splashing about, occasionally "shooting
the chutes" and diving from the pier.

"Is the water cold?" asked Cora, going down to where the waves splashed on
the pebbles. Daintily she dipped in--just a toe. "How is it, Jack?"

Jack was tumbling about near the beach like a porpoise.

"Sw--swell!" he managed to gasp, the hesitancy being because a wave
insisted on looking at his tongue, or trying to scrub his already white
teeth--Cora could not decide which.

"Is it really warm?"

"Of course!"

"It feels cold."

"I know. That's because you stand there and stick one toe in. Get wet all
over and--you'll feel----"

Jack was suddenly plunged under water by Walter, who had come swimming
up, so the sentence was not finished. But Cora could guess it.

"I'm going in; come on, girls!" she cried.

"Oh, wait a little," pleaded Belle.

"And you said you were going to learn to swim to-day!" challenged Eline.
She looked particularly well in her dainty bathing costume.

"Well, I--I didn't know the water would be so deep!"

"Deep!" echoed Cora. "It's getting shallower all the while. The tide is
going out. Come on."

She waded out a short distance, bravely repressing the spasmodic screams
that sprang to her lips, and turning to the others said:

"It--it's--fi--fine--co--come on--in!"

"Listen to her!" cried Bess. "It must be like a refrigerator to make her
stammer like that."

"It is not," said Cora. "It--it's real--real warm--when you--you--get used
to it."

"I have heard said," remarked Eline with studied calmness, "that one can
get used to anything--if one only makes up one's mind to it."

"Come--come on----"

Cora did not finish. A wave splashed up on her, taking her breath. Then,
resolving to get it over with, she strode out, threw herself under water
and a moment later was swimming beside Jack.

"Cora's in!" exclaimed Bess. "I'm going too."

"So am I," added Eline. "Come on, Belle!"

Belle hesitated.

"I can only swim a few strokes," she said. "I learned at Lake Dunkirk."

"It's much easier in salt water than fresh," insis