“Hullo!” said the big girl. “You don’t look much like a couple of drowned rats. They tell me you’ve been overboard.”
“We got wet,” admitted Nan, quietly.
“Got wet! Why, you lost your canoe, and were almost drowned, and if it hadn’t been for Linda Riggs, you wouldn’t have been saved!”
“In spite of her we were saved, is nearer the truth,” Nan declared, but without showing any of the warmth that Bess was beginning to display.
“How ridiculous! She saw you and made that Mason boy sail over to you and pick you up, didn’t she?”
“No, she didn’t!” snapped Bess, quite losing her temper now.
“Oh, of course you kids would say that,” scoffed the big girl. “You don’t like Linda. But poor Linda was so sick she couldn’t come down to supper.”
“She was sicker out in that boat,” Bess said, with a laugh. “You should have seen her.”
“And you can laugh?” groaned Miss Schiff.
“It was no laughing matter for a while,” Nan put in, good-naturedly. “We really were in great trouble. Our canoe was lost——”