Laura drew the shivering little figure close to her side. "Why, of course she'll come back, Elizabeth. Why shouldn't she? She's been out so scores of times, just as I have. What makes you worry so, child?" Elizabeth drew a long shuddering breath. "I can't help it," she sighed. "The water always makes me _so_ afraid, Miss Laura!" She lifted such a white miserable face that Laura saw it was really true--she was in the grip of a deadly terror. She drew the trembling girl down beside her on the warm sand. "Let's sit here a little while," she said, and for a few minutes they sat in silence, while further up the beach girls were wading and swimming and splashing each other, their shouts of laughter making a merry din. Some were diving from the pier, and one stood on a high springboard. Suddenly this one flung out her arms and sprang off, her slim body seeming to float between sky and water, as she swept downward in a graceful curving line. Laura caught her breath nervously as her eyes followed the slender figure that looked so very small outstretched between sky and water, and Elizabeth covered her eyes with a little moan. "O, I wish she wouldn't do that--I do wish she wouldn't!" she said under her breath. Laura spoke cheerfully. "She is all right. See, Elizabeth, how fast she is swimming now." But Elizabeth shook her head and would not look. Laura put her arm across the narrow shrinking shoulders and after a moment spoke again, slowly. "Elizabeth, you love Olga, don't you?" Elizabeth looked up quickly. She did not answer--or need to. "Yes, I know you do," Laura went on, answering the look. "But do you love her enough to do something very hard--for her?" "Yes, Miss Laura. Tell me what. She won't ever let me do anything for her." "It will be very, very hard for you," Laura warned her. The girl looked at her silently, and waited. "Elizabeth, I don't think you could do anything else that would please her so much as to conquer your fear of the water _for her sake_. Can you do such a hard thing as that--for Olga?" A look of positive agony swept over Elizabeth's face. "_Any_thing but just that," she moaned. "O Miss Laura, you don't know--you _can't_ know how I hate it--that deep black water!" "But can't you--even for Olga?" Laura questioned very gently. Elizabeth shook her head and two big tears rolled down her cheeks. "I would if I could. I'd do anything, anything else for her; but that--I _can't_!" she moaned. Laura put her hand under the trembling chin, and lifting the girl's face looked deep into the blue eyes swimming with tears. "Elizabeth," she said slowly, a world of love and sympathy in her voice, "Elizabeth, you _can_!"