"I'm glad my husband's gone to Capel Garmon to-day. Please let me tell him myself," were her first words. "It was good little Rona who saved me," she added, smiling faintly at Miss Bowes, who was down on her knees beside her on the grass.
"I wish I'd done it. I wish I'd done it. Oh, how I envy you, Rona!" cried Ulyth, regarding her friend with wide shining eyes of admiration.
Miss Teddington, pale but very self-controlled, had taken command of the situation. Eight people were thoroughly wet through and bedraggled, and must be hurried to camp and dried, and given hot drinks as speedily as possible. The rescuers needed cosseting as much as the rescued. Madge and Marion were shivering and trembling, and Rona, now the excitement of her sudden dash was over, looked more shaky than she would allow.
"We must tuck them up in blankets," said Miss Teddington. "First Aid Corps on duty, please! The difficulty is going to be how to get their clothes properly dried in a place like this."
Mrs. Arnold, with Miss Bowes to look after her, went to the farm to seek fresh garments. As for the girls, there was nothing for it but to go to bed for an hour or two, while a band of servers lighted a good fire, wrung the water from the drenched articles of clothing, and held them to the blaze. Blankets were commandeered freely from other beds, and piled round the seven heroines, who, propped up with pillows, each had a kind of reception as she sipped her hot cocoa.
"We all of us forgot about the boat," said Rona suddenly. "It's drifting upside down, and the oars are anywhere."
"Never mind. David Lewis will get it somehow, I suppose. It will drift towards the bank, and he'll wade for it."
"Where did you learn to swim like that, Rona?"
"In the lake at home. We had one nearly as big as this close to our farm."
"The Cuckoo's turned up trumps," murmured Alice Denham. "I didn't know she was capable of it."