"What a horrid day!" with a wide yawn Peggy threw the stocking she was darning into the basket. "I wish mother wouldn't make me wear stockings--then I wouldn't have any holes!"

"I wish the sun would shine," Alice chimed, disconsolately.

"If mother were here, she would say that we must make our own sunshine," Barbara laughed. She was folding carefully the white undergarment she had finished making for her college "trousseau"--as her father called it.

"Well, it seems as if everything goes wrong all at once," Peggy refused to be cheered. The children knew she was thinking of Pilot. Pilot's disgrace and sentence hung like a gloomy cloud over their hearts.

"Who'd believe you could think so much of a dog?" Keineth frowned as she pondered the thought. "I used to think Aunt Josephine was so silly over Fido. I am sure Fido was never as nice as our Pilot, but I suppose Aunt Josephine thinks he's much nicer. Once he swallowed a paper of needles from Aunt Josephine's work basket and she almost fainted, and Celeste had to call a doctor for her and another for the dog and they sent the dog to a hospital. Then Aunt Josephine blamed Celeste and told her she must leave at once and Celeste had hysterics, for you see she'd been with my aunt since she was very young and they had to send for the doctor again for Celeste."

"Oh, how funny!" laughed Peggy, though Keineth's face was very serious.

"Then Aunt Josephine felt sorry and forgave Celeste and they called up the next day from the hospital to say that Fido was very well and that needles seemed to agree with him. But Aunt Josephine worried for weeks and weeks over him."

"Pilot would know better than to eat needles," Alice broke in scornfully.

"Yes--he likes shoes and goldfish," Barbara finished. "Where's Billy?"

From the mother to the smallest of them they felt sorry for Billy. For, though Billy had said not a word concerning the fate of his pet, the hurt look in his eyes betrayed the sorrow he felt. No one knew where he was--he had disappeared quietly after breakfast. And Pilot was with him.

"No tennis or golf to-day," grieved Barbara, going to the window.

"Anyway we can swim," cried Peggy.

"In the rain?" asked Keineth, astonished.

"Why, of course, silly! Wouldn't we get wet, anyway?"

Keineth's face colored. Peggy went on with a toss of her head: "And I simply must practice swimming under water to-day--the contest isn't very far off. You can't expect me to help you out to the rock, Ken, you'll have to play in shallow water!"

Keineth's soul smarted under this humiliation. The rock was the goal around which their fun centred. It was twenty yards out from shore and its broad, flat surface gave room for six of them to stand upon it at one time. As around it the water was five feet deep, it was necessary for one of the children to help Keineth reach it. Then, while the others practiced all the feats known to the fish world, Keineth always stood carefully in its centre, head and shoulders above the water's surface and watched them with interest and admiration, tinged with envy.

To conceal the tremble in her voice Keineth had now to swallow very quickly. "All right, Peggy," was all she answered and Peggy never knew how deeply her careless words had hurt her.

Keineth had grown discouraged with her swimming. Somehow it was so easy when some one was with her, but she could never seem to muster the courage to dive off into the water the way the others did. And Daddy would be so disappointed!

Mrs. Lee had given her careful instruction in the stroke--perhaps if she was alone, away from Billy's roguish glance and the terror of his catching her ankle under water, she might feel more confidence.

This thought still lingered in her mind when, in the afternoon, they went to the beach. Billy was already in the water; the faithful Pilot was digging on the beach for dog treasures. Because of the drizzling rain Mrs. Lee had not come down.

While Barbara and Peggy were racing under water Keineth found it very easy to slip away. She chose a spot where a bend of the shore concealed her. She stood knee-deep in the water, going through the movements of the arm stroke, with a careful one, two, three. She put her small teeth tightly together--she would have confidence, she would go out deeper, throw herself calmly............