'I think we might manage to get across, though,' said Theo hopefully. 'It's a pity to turn back. We shouldn't get much wetter than we are already, should we?' 'Not much wetterer,' acquiesced Queenie equably, as she dipped first the tip of one shoe, then the other, into the water. Of course, if Theo didn't mind, it was nothing to Queenie. The afternoon was a glorious one, with a faint touch of north in the wind, just enough to bring out colour intensely. The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were alike sapphire in hue, against which the gulls that darted and skimmed hither and thither showed white. It was, in truth, an afternoon when the world seemed so passing fair, so secure, that the mind was lured into believing that it was all-sufficient. Thus it is with ourselves. When we are getting on too smoothly at school, or at our work, it all begins to feel such easy plain-sailing, that we rest on our oars and grow over-confident. We are, in a sense, off guard. And so it was with the occupants of 'The Theodora,' as it gradually made its way to the middle of the bay. Of course they would get across in safety, as Theo declared; they had done it a hundred times already, since the leak was first sprung. Nothing had ever happened in the girl's eighteen years of life in the shape of any serious accident either by land or by sea. It was difficult to realise that mishaps could possibly occur, and, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous blue above and below, Theo rowed on, calling herself lazy because she did not seem, somehow, able to get so fast through the water as usual. 'Theo! oh, Theo!' 'Queenie!' Two affrighted shrieks rang out simultaneously; for, suddenly, the sisters each became aware that 'The Theodora' had shipped a quantity of water. The boat was so heavy that Theo's oars could hardly move it. 'Oh, what have I done?' cried the elder girl, ashy pale, and stunned with the shock. 'Oh, my darling Queenie!' It was for the beloved little sister that the thrill of anxious terror rushed over Theo. She herself could swim, in a fashion, if the worst came to the worst; but Queenie, the baby-sister, how was the helpless little one to be saved? Wildly Theo gazed over the blue, rippling water. There, yonder, on the stretch of sands in front of the fisher-folk's dwellings, her long sight could distinguish the women at their usual monotonous employment, mending their nets in the doorways, all unaware of her peril and that of the child in the sunlit bay. 'Help! help!' she shrieked in the agony of fear that encompassed her, and in her own ears her voice sounded thin and feebly small, as when in some horrid nightmare we, all in vain, try to scream aloud, and fail. Would they sit there, those fisher-women, and never so much as raise their eyes to glance at the distinctly sinking boat? It was maddening to the distraught girl, simply maddening.