The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar
   "Did—didn't you find her?" gasped Miss Elting.

   "No."

   Jane was gone again, leaving a wake that reached all the way to the beach, so violent had been her floundering dive.

   Tommy, who had raised her head from the water a short distance from where the guardian was paddling, uttered a scream.

   "There thhe ith!" she cried; "there she ith! Right down there. Come in a hurry. She ith under the car. I could thee her plainly. Oh, I'm tho thcared!" Tommy began paddling for the shore with all speed.

   Miss Elting did not answer. Instead, she took a long dive. About this time Jane came up. Hazel, who was making for the spot where the guardian had disappeared, pointed to it. Jane understood. It took her but a few seconds to reach the center of the rippling circle left by the guardian; then Crazy Jane's feet kicked the air a couple of times. She had taken an almost perpendicular dive. But it seemed that she had not been under water more than a second or two when she lunged to the surface. A few feet from her Miss Elting appeared, threw herself over on her back and lay gasping for breath.

   "She'th got her!" screamed Tommy. "Harriet ith dead!"

   Gazing out over the pond she saw Jane swimming swiftly toward shore, dragging the apparently lifeless body of Harriet Burrell. Miss Elting and Hazel were closing up on Jane rapidly. Reaching her side a moment later, the guardian took one of Harriet's arms and assisted in towing her in.

   Tommy remembered afterward having been fascinated by the expressions in their faces. She stared and stared. The faces of the two women were white and haggard. Still farther back she saw only Hazel's eyes. They were so large that Tommy was scarcely able to credit their belonging to Hazel. Had Tommy known it, her own face was more pale and haggard at that moment than those of her companions.

   Jane dragged Harriet ashore; then Miss Elting grasped the unconscious girl almost roughly, flung her over on her stomach and began applying "first aid to the drowned."

   "Ith—ith she dead?" gasped Tommy.

   "She's drowned, darlin'," answered Crazy Jane McCarthy abruptly.

   "Lay her over on her back!"


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