-Page 14.]

"Take the helm, Bob," shouted I, throwing the boat round into the wind,
and springing upon the half deck.

I was prepared to jump overboard, if it was necessary; but it was not. I
had seized the short boat-hook as I went forward, and with it I hooked
on to her dress. Drawing her towards the boat, I seized her by the arm,
and lifted her on board. She had been in the water but a few moments,
and had not lost her consciousness; indeed, she appeared not to have
suffered at all from her bath. I at once concluded that she was one of
the young ladies whom I had frequently seen bathing on the beach, and
that the water had no terrors to her. I had not seen her swim, though
the water was over her head.

I placed her on one of the seats as soon as I had pulled her out of the
water, expecting her to faint, or do some other womanish thing. She
brushed the water from her eyes, and bending down so that she could look
under the foresail, she caught a glimpse of the lady on the pier.

"Take me away from here--O, do!" said she, bestowing a pleading look
upon me.

"Where shall I land you?" I asked, in gentle tones.

"Anywhere but here--don't leave me here," she replied, earnestly, and
hardly less agitated than when she had leaped into the lake.

"But you are wet through, and you may take cold," I suggested, mildly.

"I don't care if I do. It makes no difference. Take me away from here."

"Where shall I land you?" I asked again, puzzled by her singular
conduct.

"I don't care where; but if you land me here I shall jump into the lake
again."

Bob Hale had put the helm up, and the Splash had filled away again on
her former course, which was bearing us away from the pier on which the
lady still stood.

"Shall I come about?" asked he, apparently satisfied that the only thing
we could do was to land the young lady on the pier.

"Not just yet, Bob," I replied, fearful that a change of our course
would increase her agitation.

"I am very much obliged to you for what you have done for me," said the
dripping maiden, who paid not the slightest attention to the condition
of her clothing, and was wholly absorbed in her own thoughts, which
were painful enough to give her face an expression of agony. "I hope you
will not think I am ungrateful, Ernest Thornton."

"I do not think so," I replied, astonished to find she knew my name.

"And I shall be ever so much more grateful to you if you will take me
away from this place,"