Gypsy pulled him out and carried him ashore. She wrung him out a little, and set him down on the grass, and then, by way of doing something, she took her dripping handkerchief out of her dripping pocket and wiped her hands on it.
“O—o—oh!” gasped Winnie; “I never did—you’d ought to know—you’ve just gone’n drownded me!”
“What a story!” said Gypsy; “you’re no more drowned than I am. To be sure you are rather wet,” she added, with a disconsolate attempt at a laugh.
“You oughtn’t to have tooken me out on that old raft,” glared Winnie, through the shower of water-drops that rained down from his forehead, “you know you hadn’t! I’ll just tell mother. I’ll get sick and be died after it, you see if I don’t.”
“Very well,” said Gypsy, giving herself a little shake, very much as a pretty brown spaniel would do, who had been in swimming.
“You may do as you like. Who teased to go on the raft, I’d like to know?”
“Besides,” resumed Winnie, with an impressive cough; “you’re late to school, ’cause mother, she said you was to come right up when she sent me down, only I—well I guess, I b’lieve I forgot to tell you,—I rather think I did. Anyways, you’re late,—so!”
Gypsy looked at Winnie, and Winnie looked at Gypsy. There was an awful silence.