"Oh, Cora!"

"The poor girl!"

Belle and Bess, with clasped hands, bent over the prostrate form of
the girl, whose plain, black dress showed the dust and travel stains
of the highways about Chelton. From the verandah Mrs. Kimball stepped
in, through the long window.

"Get some water, Cora," she directed in a calm and self-possessed
voice. "Also the aromatic ammonia on my dressing table. It is
merely a faint. Poor girl! She seemed very weak while she was
talking to me. I was just going to ask her to sit down, and let me
have a cup of tea brought to her, when she suddenly turned away from
me and came in where you girls were."

"She heard us talking," ventured Bess, a little awed by the strange
happening.

"And she asked the oddest question--about Sea Horse Island--where
papa is going--and she spoke of her father--I wonder what she meant?"
asked Belle.

"Time enough to find out after we've revived her," suggested Cora,
who, like her mother, was not at all alarmed by a mere fainting fit.

Belle, inspired by her chum's coolness, had stooped over and was
raising the girl's head.