"I had to put on just what I could find," she stammered, "so please don't look at me."
There hung drying above the fire on a clothes' line a wet skirt, which still steamed, and near it a draggled rag, which was the light cotton blouse she had been wearing that day.
"You were upset!" he exclaimed, hardly able to master his horror.
She tried to shrug her shoulders indifferently, but looked rather piteous as she did so.
"Upset?" she said; "well, what of that? I simply swam ashore."
"In those clothes?" he asked. "What woman could ever swim in clothes?"
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, with her eyes still on the floor; "why not? The things I could do without I left in the boat.... To-morrow they will turn up somewhere."
"Now, child, tell me all about it," he urged.
"What am I to tell you?" she replied. "You will only scold me;" and her lips curled saucily.
"I promise I won't," he assured her.