"Patty must try again another day," said Miss Latimer. "She will soon gain a little more confidence, and I expect after a few weeks she will be diving at the deep end as readily as any of you. We will take the life-saving again now, with Enid to play the part of a drowning person. I was not at all satisfied with the way you pulled Patty out of the water. If such an accident had happened in a river, or in the open sea, I am afraid some of you would have been in danger yourselves."
Miss Latimer proved a true prophet, and Patty found that long before the summer term was over she was able to both dive and float, as well as swim easily round the bath. She was delighted with her new accomplishment, and began to plan already whether it would be possible to persuade her father to leave his patients and take his family to the seaside for a few weeks during the holidays, so that she might have the satisfaction of teaching the little ones what she had learnt herself.
"If he really can't spare the time," she confided to Enid, "there's a big pond at the end of a pasture near a farm, about a mile from our house. I'm sure it would be quite safe, and we could all bathe there, even Kitty and Rowley. I could float a plank on the water to hold them up while they're learning their strokes, or perhaps Mother's air cushion would be of some use, if she'd lend it to us. Basil can swim already—he learnt in the river near his school—so he'd come and help, and I'm sure they'd all enjoy it immensely, even if they only splashed about and did nothing else."
The two great recreations of the summer term at The Priory were tennis and cricket. A few girls indulged occasionally in croquet and archery, but that was only in spare time, and during the couple of hours devoted daily to outdoor exercise everybody was expected to take part in one or other of the principal games.
"You'd better choose definitely which you mean to go in for, Patty," said Winnie, "and then stick to it. If you've any aspirations towards being a tennis champion, I should advise you to keep to the courts, and practise every minute you can; but if, on the other hand, you like cricket better, I shouldn't bother with tennis if I were you."
"Winnie's right; you can't serve two masters," said Enid. "It will take your whole time if you want to do anything at tennis. The Chambers are all so splendid at it, it needs a good player to have any chance against them."
"But Miss Latimer's very hard to satisfy at cricket," said Winnie.
"So she is. She certainly doesn't allow any slack practice."
"She pegged my right leg down once to prevent my moving it, and she's most severe on a crooked bat," said Avis.
"She recollects everybody's average scores for whole years back," said Winnie. "I can't think how anybody can have such a memory."