e could be seen all the way.

It was a lovely morning--bright and peaceful--and Harry, as he went,
wished that poor Dora had got leave to bathe.

[Illustration]

"Next year," he thought, "I hope we shall come again, and then what fun
we shall have. Dolly will learn to swim in no time."

Suddenly a sound disturbed his pleasant thoughts. A horse and cart or
carriage of some kind was rushing wildly along, coming nearer and
nearer. Surely the horse, or pony, as Harry now saw it to be, was
running away. The boy who had never been a coward except about "sea
things," tumbled down the steep grassy slope in no time, and stood in
the middle of the road eager to see what he could do. The flying vehicle
was near enough now for him to see that it was the pony-carriage of two
girls, a little older than Dora, whose home was one of the pretty houses
a little way from Seacliff. He had often seen them drive down in it to
the shore to bathe.

But what a queer figure was driving now. The pony was not running away,
on the contrary, it seemed as if it could not run fast enough to please
the driver; a girl with hair streaming, dressed only in a blue flannel
bathing gown, streaming too, who stood upright in the carriage, lashing
the poor pony as if she were mad, while from time to time she screamed,
in a shrill and yet choking voice, "Help, help--for God's sake, help!"

"What is it?" screamed Harry too, as she passed. She would not stop, but
she threw back some words on the wind.

"My sister--Alice--drowning. Going to the village to fetch some one--can
swim."

And then again came the terrible cry, as if she hardly knew what she was
saying, "Help, help!"

"Oh," thought Harry, "if she could have stopped and taken me back, we'd
have been at the shore in a moment. _I_ can swim. _I_ can swim."

And he could run too. It was not so very far from the bathing-place. How
he got there Harry never could tell. On he rushed, tearing off his
clothes as he went. Off flew hat, jacket, collar and shirt, till there
was nothing but trousers and tennis-shoes to pitch away, as in his
little clinging woven drawers only, brave Harry flung himself, fearless
and dauntless, into the sea, and struck out for the round dark object,
poor Alice's head, which it had taken but an instant to point out to
him.

"I can _swim_! I can _swim_!" were the magic words with which he was
able at once to push off the friendly hands that would have drawn him
back, whose owner