rowed, and rowed, as fast as I could, and all the time the shouting and
screaming went on, and at last what do you think I saw? I saw a boat,
which looked as if something was dragging it down into the water. Part
of it had already sunk down into the lake, and in the part which was
still above the water there were three people sitting, a gentleman, and
two little girls who looked about ten years old. And they were shouting
'Help! help!' at the top of their voices, and waving an oar with a
handkerchief tied to it. And the boat in which they sat was sinking
farther and farther into the water, and if I had'n't come up just when I
did, the gentleman and the two little girls would have been drowned."

"Oh, father!" cried Milly, "what made their boat do like that? And did
they get into yours?"

"There was a great hole in the bottom of their boat, Milly, and the
water was coming through it, and making the boat so heavy that it was
sinking down and down into the lake, just as a stone would sink if you
threw it in. How the hole came there we never quite knew: I thought they
must have knocked their boat against a sharp rock--in some parts of the
lake there are rocks under the water which you can't see--and the rock
had made the hole; but other people thought it had happened in some
other way. However, there they were, and when I took them all into my
boat you never saw such miserable little creatures as the two little
girls were. They were wet through, they were as white as little ghosts,
and when they were safe in my boat they began to cry and shake so, poor
little souls, though their father and I wrapped them up in our coats,
that I did want their mother to come and comfort them."

"Oh, but, father, you took them safe home to their mother, didn't you?
And do tell me what she said."