d. "Did you ever see such a forlorn figure!"

"Looks like a sick penguin," laughed Louise Johnson.

"Why in the world is she standing there all alone?" cried Laura, and
hurried on ahead, calling, "Elizabeth--Elizabeth, come here. I want
you."

Elizabeth, standing in water up to her ankles, hesitated for a moment,
swept the wide stretch of blue with a wistful searching glance, and then
obeyed the summons.

"Why were you standing there, dear?" Laura questioned gently, leading
her away from the laughing curious girls.

Elizabeth lifted earnest eyes to the kind face bending towards her.

"I promised Olga I'd wade every day--so I had to." Then she broke out,
"O Miss Laura, do you think she'll come back? She went all alone, and
she isn't anywhere in sight."

Laura drew the shivering little figure close to her side. "Why, of
course she'll come back, Elizabeth. Why shouldn't she? She's been out so
scores of times, just as I have. What makes you worry so, child?"

Elizabeth drew a long shuddering breath. "I can't help it," she sighed.
"The water always makes me _so_ afraid, Miss Laura!"

She lifted such a white miserable face that Laura saw it was really
true--she was in the grip of a deadly terror. She drew the trembling
girl down beside her on the warm sand. "Let's sit here a little while,"
she said, and for a few minutes they sat in silence, while further up
the beach girls were wading and swimming and splashing each other, their
shouts of laughter making a merry din. Some were diving from the pier,
and one stood on a high springboard. Suddenly this one flung out her
arms and sprang off, her slim body seeming to float between sky and
water, as she swept downward in a graceful curving line.

Laura caught her breath nervously as her eyes followed the slender
figure that looked so very small outstretched between sky and water, and
Elizabeth covered her eyes with a little moan.

"O, I wish she wouldn't do that--I do wish she wouldn't!" she said under
her breath.

Laura spoke cheerfully. "She is all right. See, Elizabeth, how fast she
is swimming now."

But Elizabeth shook her head and would not look. Laura put her arm
across the narrow shrinking shoulders and after a moment spoke again,
slowly. "Elizabeth, you love Olga, don't you?"

Elizabeth looked up quickly. She did not answer--or need to.

"Yes, I know you do," Laura went on, answering the look. "But do you
love her enough to do something very hard--for her