she leaned against the door post while Mr. Danvers
patted her hand gently and tried not to look too much relieved. "Where
did you go? Why, girls----" She stopped short in absolute amazement and
bewilderment as she caught sight of Laura and Vi and Billie on the floor,
each with a child clasped in her arms. "Where did you get them?"

She did not wait for an answer. She flew across the room and, dropping to
her knees, gazed at the children who at this new intrusion had started
away from the girls and regarded her with wide, doubtful eyes.

"Why, you precious little scared babies, you!" she cried, pushing the
girls away and gathering the children to her. "I don't know where you
came from, but what you need is mothering. Where did they come from?" she
asked, looking up at Uncle Tom.

"From out there," said Uncle Tom gravely, waving his hand toward the spot
where the ship had gone down. Then he quickly told her and Mr. Danvers
what the girls had told him. They did not interrupt. Only, when he had
finished, Mrs. Danvers was crying and not trying to hide it.

"Oh, those poor, poor people!" she sobbed. "And these poor little
frightened, miserable children all, all there is left. Oh, I'll never get
over the horror of it. Never, never! John," she added, looking up at her
husband with one of those quick changes of mood that the girls had
learned to expect in her, "will you and Tom help me get the children
home? They mustn't be left like this in dripping clothes. They'll catch
their death of cold. What they need is a hot bath and something to eat,
and then bed. Poor little sweethearts, they are just dropping for sleep."

So Uncle Tom took one of the little girls, Mr. Danvers another, and
Connie's mother insisted upon carrying the little boy.

"Why, he's nothing at all to carry," she said, when her husband
protested. "Poor child--he's only skin and bones."

So the strange procession started for the bungalow, the girls, tired out
with nerve strain and excitement, bringing up the rear. But they did not
know they were tired. The mystery of the three strange little waifs
washed up to them by the sea had done a good deal to erase even the
horror of the wreck.

"And we haven't the slightest idea in the world who they really are or
whom they belong to," Connie was saying as they turned in at the walk.
"It is a mystery, girls, a _real_ mystery this time. And I don't know how
we'll solve it."

But they forgot the mystery for the time