"Yes."
Snap! Tommy uttered a wild scream of terror. Miss Elting was reaching for the upraised foot.
Tommy's belt gave way when her foot was almost within the guardian's grasp, and her slender body shot downward.
CHAPTER XIII
PLACING THE BLAME
Such screams as rose from over the ledge none of that party ever had heard. Harriet, it will be remembered, had hold of the little girl's hands, or rather one hand, when Tommy's belt broke. The jolt was so great that it seemed to the two girls as if their arms would be pulled from their sockets.
Tommy thought, too, that she was being hurled to her death when she felt herself falling. But Harriet, with unusual presence of mind, had clutched the little girl's hand with a desperate grip.
"Give me the other hand," she panted.
"I—I can't," sobbed Tommy, who immediately began to wriggle in an attempt to reach the shelf.