“O, I wish she wouldn’t do that—I do wish she wouldn’t!” she said under her breath.
Laura spoke cheerfully. “She is all right. See, Elizabeth, how fast she is swimming now.”
But Elizabeth shook her head and would not look. Laura put her arm across the narrow shrinking shoulders and after a moment spoke again, slowly. “Elizabeth, you love Olga, don’t you?”
Elizabeth looked up quickly. She did not answer—or need to.
“Yes, I know you do,” Laura went on, answering the look. “But do you love her enough to do something very hard—for her?”
“Yes, Miss Laura. Tell me what. She won’t ever let me do anything for her.”
“It will be very, very hard for you,” Laura warned her.
The girl looked at her silently, and waited.
“Elizabeth, I don’t think you could do anything else that would please her so much as to conquer your fear of the water for her sake. Can you do such a hard thing as that—for Olga?”
A look of positive agony swept over Elizabeth’s face. “Anything but just that,” she moaned. “O Miss Laura, you don’t know—you can’t know how I hate it—that deep black water!”