There was a general laugh.
"How will you go to work?" asked Jack. "Shall I step down to Hussey's, and get a shell for you to practise on?"
"She'll be setting the house on fire some night, to show what she can do," added Harry, teasingly.
"I shall do no such thing," protested Dolly, indignantly. "How foolish you are! You don't understand a bit! I don't want to make things happen; but, if they do happen, I shall try to keep cool and have my wits about me, and perhaps I shall."
"It would be lovely to be brave and do heroic things," remarked Phyllis.
"You could at least be brave enough to use your common sense," said her mother. "Yours is a very good resolution, Dolly dear, and I hope you'll keep to it."
"I will," said Dolly, and marched undauntedly off to bed. Later, she found herself repeating, as if it were a lesson to be learned, "Presence of mind means keeping cool, and having your wits about you;" and she said it over and over every morning and evening after that, as she braided her hair. Phyllis overheard, and laughed at her a little; but Dolly didn't mind being laughed at, and kept on rehearsing her sentence all the same.
It is not given to all of us to test ourselves, and discover by actual experiment just how much a mental resolution has done for us. Dolly, however, was to have the chance. The bathing-beach at Nantucket is a particularly safe one, and the water through the summer months most warm and delicious. All the children who lived on the sandy bluff known as "The Cliff" were in the habit of bathing; and the daily dip taken in company was the chief event of the day, in their opinion. The little Wares all swam like ducks; and no one thought of being nervous or apprehensive if Harry struck out boldly for the jetty, or if Erma and Phyllis were seen side by side at a point far beyond the depth of either of them, or little Dolly took a "header" into deep water off an old boat.
It happened, about two months after the talk on the piazza, that Dolly was bathing with Kitty Allen, a small neighbor of her own age. Kitty had just been learning to swim, and was very proud of her new accomplishment; but she was by no means so sure of herself or so much at home in the water as Dolly, who had learned three years before, and practised continually.
The two children had swam out for quite a distance; then, as they turned to go back, Kitty suddenly realized her distance from the shore, and was seized with immediate and paralyzing terror.