scrambled down into the boat and sat quietly on the stern seat.
There was a strong breeze blowing, and as the boat swayed up and
down on the rippling water, its keel grating against the post to
which it was tied, and the doors and windows being tightly shut,
they did not hear Carter's voice. They really had no intention of
frightening the old man, and supposed he would open the door in a
moment.

But Carter's mind was so filled with the thought that the children
had fallen into the water that it didn't occur to him to open the
boathouse. He went to the edge of the pier, which was a narrow
affair, consisting only of two wooden planks and a single hand
rail, and gazed anxiously down into the water.

This gave Stella a firm conviction that the girls were drowned,
and without another word she began to cry in her own noisy and
tumultuous fashion. Poor Carter, already at his wits' end, had
small patience with any additional worry.

"Keep still, Miss Stella," he commanded; "it's enough to have two
children on me hands drowned without another one raising a
hullabaloo. And it's a queer thing, too, if them wicked little
rats is drownded, why they don't come up to the surface! My stars!
Whatever will the Missus say? But, havin' disappeared so mortal
quick, there's no place they can be but under the water. I'll get
a boat-hook, and perhaps I can save 'em yet."

Trembling with excitement and bewildered with anxiety, so that he
scarcely knew what he did, the old man fitted the key in the lock.
He flung open the boathouse door and faced the two children, who