on our shoes and stockings we can easily rush out and rescue him. Look at
the white horses, and the waves against the island. We are really a good
way out, but we could rescue him in two minutes, and your mother would be
_grateful_ to us."

But Susie was not listening. The twins' suggestions beat on her brain,
and found no entrance. All the best of Susie--the real, comfortable
Susie--brimming over with a love that was almost motherly, was in the
kind, quivering face she bent over Dick as he held out his tired arms.

In a minute she was down beside him, stroking and folding him close, till
his sobbing breaths were stifled on her shoulder.

"Oh, do come on, Susie!" said the twins; "we can't stay another minute.
If you won't leave him you'll be caught, and you will never be allowed to
play with us again."

Susie looked up, bewildered, into the twins' anxious faces. What did it
matter if she were caught, or blamed, or punished? The idea of leaving
Dick, even to make a sensational rescue, never entered her head for a
minute. _Leave him_, frightened and alone, out on the dark rocks! As she
had herself said, such a little while ago, "not for a king's ransom." She
only wanted the twins to go and leave her in peace, and so she told them
with that plainness of speech which to Susie seemed to suit the occasion.
"Please, please go," she said. "I can carry him quite well after he has
rested a little bit."

"You will be found out," said the twins warningly.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Susie.