Stop a bit; I'll get a life-preserver
and leaving Debby to flirt with the waves, the scarlet
youth departed like a flame of fire.
A dismal shriek interrupted his pupil's play, and
looking up, she saw her aunt beckoning wildly with
one hand, while she was groping in the water with
the other. Debby ran to her, alarmed at her
tragic expression, and Mrs. Carroll, drawing the
girl's face into the privacy of her big bonnet,
whispered one awful word, adding, distractedly,--
"Dive for them! oh, dive for them! I shall be
perfectly helpless, if they are lost!"
"I can't dive, Aunt Pen; but there is a man,
let us ask him," said Debby, as a black head
appeared to windward.
But Mrs. Carroll's "nerves" had received a
shock, and, gathering up her dripping garments,
she fled precipitately along the shore and vanished
into her dressing-room.
Debby's keen sense of the ludicrous got the better
of her respect, and peal after peal of laughter
broke from her lips, till a splash behind her put an
end to her merriment, and, turning, she found that
this friend in need was her acquaintance of the day
before.
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