XXVI
TWO HEROINES
In spite of the fine opportunity afforded her at Rockley, Julia, by September, had learned to swim only a few yards at a time. Brenda and Amy always laughed at her timidity, and they had also helped and encouraged her. But neither laughter nor encouragement had given her a sense of ease in the water. She was happy only when she could bathe in the surf, or splash about in fairly shallow water with a motion that was something between floating and swimming.
Brenda and Amy, on the contrary, were expert swimmers, at least for their age, and they found it very hard to understand Julia’s timidity. In July and August at the bathing hour, which varied each day according to the tide, the pretty little semicircle of beach was crowded with bathers, or with those who watched them. Old and young went in at the same time, and the scene on the sands was always a merry one. In September the bathers were fewer, and there were not many lookers-on. But Brenda continued to bathe, even on days when the temperature of the water made it rather unsafe to do so. Just before the middle of the month, however, there came a warm wave, and for three or four days the ocean seemed more tempting than it had been even in midsummer.
“Come, Julia,” called Brenda, “you must come down with me. I am to meet Amy and Fritz at the rocks, and at three o’clock the tide will be exactly right. I declare, I shall feel like staying in for an hour, it has been such a hot and tiresome day.”
“Oh, Brenda, I would really rather stay here; the breeze is coming round towards this side of the house, and this room is shaded. A book and an easy-chair are much more comfortable than a bath.”
“There, Julia Bourne, you can never say that you are not lazy. This is the one thing about which you are absolutely lazy. I believe that you dread the trouble of the bath!”
Brenda’s tone was one of mock severity; but a pleasant smile belied the gravity of her words.
Julia closed her book slowly.
“Well, perhaps I am lazy; for I am willing to admit that I would rather not exert myself. But perhaps I need the exercise, and bathing is almost the only exercise one can take on a hot day like this.”
“Oh, yes, come on! You know that you always enjoy yourself when you are once in the water,” and Brenda pirouetted out of the room so energetically that Julia smiled, calling after her,—
“Don’t forget that it is a hot day!” A half-hour later the two cousins stood on the beach in their bathing-suits, and looked around for Amy and Fritz.
“We might as well go in without them,” Brenda at length exclaimed a little impatiently. “But I don’t see why they have n’t come; for Amy always does what she says she will do.” There were a few others in the water, but, as it happened, no one whom the cousins knew very well. Suddenly, after they had been in a minute or two, a girl on the shore waved her hands, and continued waving until Brenda realized that she was beckoning to her.
“I wonder who it can be?” Then, as she swam shoreward, “Why, it’s Frances! I wonder what has brought her down here.”
In a few moments Brenda rejoined Julia, and told her that Frances was visiting the Whittingtons at their cottage on the cliffs just beyond Rockley.
“She’s coming out in her bathing-suit presently. She says that she has been taking lessons, and that she can do all kinds of remarkable things in the way of swimming and diving.”
Presently Frances joined Brenda and Julia. She nodded at Julia, and approached Brenda with more enthusiasm.
“I’m glad that you are going in to-day, Brenda. None of the Whittingtons care for bathing, and so I came down to the beach alone. If there had been time, I should have sent some one up to your house to inquire. But I did n’t think of it until the last minute, and then Mrs. Whittington said it was too hot to send one of the maids so far. Some people have such ridiculous ideas about their servants, and the man had gone over to Marblehead. But she thought that I’d find you here.”
By this time the two girls were some distance out in the water, and Frances continued her conversation with Brenda without paying the slightest attention to Julia. This treatment, however, did not disturb Julia. She was, indeed, too well accustomed to Frances to let her cause her the least uneasiness. Besides, she found it altogether more amusing to paddle about, now and then supporting herself with a board which in some way had drifted within the bathing limits. This was far pleasanter to her than following Brenda and Frances into the deeper water. Besides, out there the jelly fish, white or pink, were altogether too numerous for Julia’s fancy. Brenda did not mind them. In swimming she was expert enough to steer clear of them. She was inclined to laugh when Julia, with a scream of annoyance, drew back from the star-shaped pulpy things that floated about, altogether too near the surface of the water.
“It would be so very unpleasant,” she always thought, “to swallow one of those queer things, and there seems to be no reason why they should n’t drift into my mouth.”
So now she drifted indolently on the surface of the water. Her finger-tips rested lightly on the edge of the board as she moved along, making the swimming motions with her feet. She realized that she was staying a long time in the water; but she felt so thoroughly refreshed that she dreaded going back to the warm shore. Glancing toward the beach, she saw that it was altogether deserted.
“Where in the world are Brenda and Frances?” she suddenly exclaimed to herself, glancing out in the direction where she had last seen them, splashing the water at each other after they had finished a short race.
But Julia’s reflections were now interrupted by a scream.
“Julia! Julia!” she thought she heard Brenda’s voice call, although Brenda herself was not in sight. Then her eye rested on a rock that was the farthest out at sea of the rocks, where she and Brenda, and Fritz and Amy and many other of the people near Rockley were accustomed to sit. These rocks showed a steep, high surface to the ocean, and at low tide the side toward the sea was covered with seaweed. There was one of these rocks which was wholly covered at high tide, and at low tide only the top of it was to be seen. The space between it and the others was too deep for wading, even at low tide. Indeed, there was deep water all around it. Julia had been warned by her uncle and Brenda not to go near it, as a current on one side made this a perilous spot even for a good swimmer.
“There’s no danger of my ever going out there,” said Julia. “That’s one of the advantages of being a poor swimmer. I’m not likely to take any risks.” Remembering her uncle’s caution, great, therefore, was Julia’s surprise, this September afternoon, on looking toward the rock, in the direction of Brenda’s voice, to see her apparently lying on the surface of the water, with one hand resting against the stone surface.
But where was Frances?
In an instant Julia realized that this was not a time for questions. She must do something at once—but what?
Even as she was pondering what to do, she was floating a little nearer her cousin. “The board, oh, Julia, the board!” She seemed to hear Brenda cry, and she pushed on faster. She never knew how she managed to do it, for usually the fact that she had reached deep water had an almost paralyzing effect, impelling her to turn around toward the shore. But now, regardless of deep water, regardless of the jolly fish that she passed on every side, she pushed on. So strong did she feel, so sure of herself, that she would have flung the board aside, to press on toward Brenda; yes, to swim to her, although up to this time she had never tried a quarter so long a course. After what seemed to her a very long interval, she came within speaking distance of Brenda.
“Frances has hurt herself,” cried the latter, “a stone, or something—oh, hurry, Julia, I cannot hold her much longer!”
Julia now, on looking more closely, saw that Brenda was keeping Frances’s head above water, and then—
“Oh, Julia, I am so thankful to have you here! I do not think that I could have kept up a minute longer.”
Poor Brenda gave a gasp of relief as Julia pushed the board in front of her. The strain had evidently been very severe. Julia for the moment was puzzled. She did not see wherein her coming had improved the situation. At this moment Frances opened her eyes.
“Oh, my foot!” she cried in pain.
“There, Frances,” said Brenda, encouragingly, “now we shall be all right. Just put your hands on the edge of the board, and I will keep hold of the back of your blouse. I can swim well enough with one arm, and we will aim for the small rocks.”
“Yes,” continued Julia, encouragingly, “you must remember that we shall quickly get into shallower ater.”
“Are you coming, too?” asked Brenda.
“Why, yes, why not?” responded Julia. “I will swim just behind, in case of any accident, if Frances should slip off.”
But Frances did not slip off, and in a really rather short time, although it seemed long enough to the cousins, they had reached shallow water. Here Julia was glad to stand upright, and wade to the shore, a little ahead of Brenda and her charge.
“I have found a flat stone,” she said, turning around, and wading back to help Brenda with Frances. For now that they had reached shallow water, Frances could neither float nor walk. She could only kneel while Brenda supported her. When they returned, the two girls made a kind of basket of their hands, and, raising Frances on it, they managed to get her to the shore. Just as they had reached the rock, they heard a voice from the summit above them.
“Who’s been doing what? Where in the world have you been?”
“Why, it’s Arthur Weston!” cried Julia. “How in the world did he come here? I thought that he was in the woods of Maine.”
The young man had not waited for a reply. His sharp eye had seen that there was something amiss with the girls, and clambering down, regardless of seaweed and pools of slimy water that did not improve the appearance 
“Where are you going, where are you going?” cried the girls.
“To that bathing house over there,” he replied; “the door is open, and we can fix a couch for her on that bench. There’s a stable up the road, and I ’ll have a doctor or a carriage here before you can turn around.”
“Brenda, run to your bath-house and get dressed,” said Julia, “I will stay with Frances until you return.”
“There’s an old golf cape in Mrs. Whittington’s bath-house,” murmured Frances, “if you could bring it here, I could use it in the carriage.”
Now while they were speaking Arthur Weston had gone off, and, in a surprisingly short time, he returned with a carriage.
“They had one harnessed,” he explained; “now where shall we go?” for he and the driver were already lifting Frances into the carriage.
“To Mrs. Whittington’s,” said Brenda, who had now come back from her own bath-house, showing very little evidence of her hasty toilet.
“There’s room for you, too; but we must n’t lose time.”
“Lock up Frances’s bath-house; the key is in the door,” called Brenda, as they drove away, leaving to Julia the task of dressing herself and doing up Frances’s clothes into a large bundle, so that they should be ready when Mrs. Whittington’s man should come down for them.
In the course of half an hour Brenda and Arthur Weston drove back in great spirits.
“We’ve come to drive you home,” cried Brenda.
“You mean that I am going to drive you both home,” interposed young Weston. “You do not suppose I would let such heroines walk!”
“Yes, heroines, Julia!” cried Brenda, laughing. “You and I are both heroines. That’s what Mrs. Whittington called us, and she must know. Frances says that we saved her life.”
“Nonsense!” said Julia. “At least, I can speak for myself. I did n’t save her life, although I cannot tell what you may have done.”
“Well, I am sure that I did n’t save her life,” returned Brenda.
“Then it must have been I,” and Arthur Weston mockingly assumed a self-satisfied expression. “Her life is certainly saved, and if you girls repudiate the heroic deed, why, the credit must be mine!”
“All joking aside,” interrupted Julia, “I should like to know what really happened. Up to the present moment I have only the faintest idea.”
“Why, she stubbed her toe; that is, she succeeded in some way in dislocating it. I told her to look out for that rock, but you know that she never will take advice. I am surprised that she felt it so much, though.”
“There was no pretending about it,” interposed the young man. “She certainly was in great pain.”
“A little thing like that often is harder to bear,” added Julia, “than something that seems much larger. Frances must feel very grateful to you for supporting her in the water so long.”
“Strange as it may seem,” replied Brenda, laughing, “she seems even more grateful to you. She thinks that, without you, we both should have drowned.”
“Oh, dear, no! If I had n’t been there, you would have found some way to climb up that rock, sharp and slippery though it looked.”
“Oh, I can’t bear to think of it!” and Brenda shuddered. “You cannot imagine how helpless I felt for a moment. I was afraid that you would n’t be able to reach us. How did you manage to do it? You have always seemed so frightened in deep water.”
“I can’t tell how it happened,” responded Julia. “I just seemed to be carried along, and I forgot to be afraid. Do they think that Frances will have much trouble with her foot?”
“She won’t be able to use it for some time, and she is in a rather nervous state. But every one is thankful that it wasn’t worse.”
“Can’t we talk of something more cheerful?” asked Arthur Weston. “We ’ve all been rescued, and no lives are lost. Have you heard from the happy couple? No one sent a word to the woods of Maine, and I don’t like to feel that the wedding deprived me wholly of my only brother.”
“Oh, we ’ve had letters!” responded Brenda, “and two have been forwarded here for you. I wondered why, for I did n’t know that you were coming back this way.”
“As if I could pass within a hundred miles of Rockley without coming to see you!”
Brenda looked at the young man out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if he were in earnest. But she did not wish him to know that she wondered.
“No, indeed!” he continued. “I wanted to see you all, and I had the Portland express stop at Salem, expressly.”
Julia gave a merry laugh.
“I was trying, Brenda, to see which of us ought to take all these compliments to heart. But a man who can make puns is n’t to be taken in earnest.”
“Ah, well!” and Arthur sighed heavily. “I cannot see why some one is always doubting me. Here I ’ve driven you the most roundabout road to the house, thinking that you would thus have the chance to pay me at least one compliment, and not one have I had, except those that I ’ve paid myself.”
“You ’re looking rather sunburned,” said Julia.
“That’s what your aunt said, when I saw her at the house.”
“Oh, you ’ve been at the house?”
“Of course; how should I otherwise have known where you were? What should I have done with my valise? In response to Mr. Barlow’s kind invitation, I came prepared to stay at least a day. The valise would have been terribly in the way when I undertook the work of rescue.”
“I’m glad you are going to stay,” said Brenda. “It’s been just a little dull the last few days.”
“And you think that I ’ll make things livelier. Well, we ’ll see.”
As the carriage at this moment drove up to the door of Rockley, further conversation between Arthur and Brenda was interrupted.