Before they could reach the cottage the door of it opened and a woman stood on the threshold, hatless and coatless and staring at them anxiously.
When she recognized the children she gave a gesture of relief and backed into the house, motioning to the girls to follow her.
This the girls were not in the least reluctant to do, for they were chilled through, and the warmth of Mrs. Haddon’s kitchen was wonderfully comforting.
They set the children on the floor, and the little ones ran straight to their mother. Polly Haddon dropped to her knees and put her arms around the three of them, cuddling them hungrily.
“My precious little lambs, you frightened mother so!” she said. “She thought you were lost—but you are wet—or you have been!” She rose to her feet and faced the girls while the children clung to her skirts.
“Where did you find my little ones?” she asked abruptly, looking anxiously from one to the other of them.
“We found them up to their waists in icy water,” Billie explained, knowing that no time was to be lost if the children were to be saved from a bad cold. “They fell through the ice on the lake.”
“Fell through the ice!” the woman repeated dumbly, then, seeming suddenly to realize the full seriousness of the situation, she roused herself to action.
With a quick motion she swept the children nearer to the warmth of the coal stove, then started for a door at the opposite end of the room. Then as if she realized that something was due the girls, she paused and looked back at them.
“Draw up chairs close to the fire and warm yourselves,” she directed. “You must be nearly frozen.”