Mabel waked up just as Jane triumphantly rode her last wave and was cast up on the sand still holding on to her unconscious burden.

Lorna’s friends, shrieking and crying, threw themselves on her wailing and moaning:

“She is dead! She is dead!”

“Give her to me!” sternly demanded her stricken father.

Jane was completely exhausted and lay for a moment with her eyes closed while the crowd of holiday makers closed in around her, praising her and lauding her to the skies. But Jane’s work was not over. As soon as she could pull herself together she was on her feet and, pushing her way unceremoniously through the crowd, she caught Mr. Breckenridge by the arm where he stood clasping his Lorna to his broken heart.

“Don’t listen to them! She is not dead! Give her to me. Give her here, I say! Mabel!” she called, “come and help me.”

Mabel was there in a moment.

“Push the crowd back and come give first aid to the drowning. You know how.” Jane spoke authoritatively and Mabel took matters into her own hands. Lorna’s friends were the hardest to manage as they insisted upon hanging over her and covering her with kisses.

“You are killing her!” Jane spoke sternly. “Mr. Breckenridge, if you can’t make these people stop, I’ll not answer for your daughter’s life.”

And now Mr. Breckenridge took matters into his own hands and pushed away the curious ones who would crowd in and with no gentle hand pulled the well-meaning if ill-advised friends away from his daughter.

Then Mabel began the process of bringing to life the seemingly dead. Many times had she practiced this stunt in classes until she knew how to do it better than any one of the group of Camp Fire Girls.

“That fat girl will mash her,” wailed one of the friends.

“I may be fat but I’m no fool,” retorted Mabel, who had placed Lorna on her face with arms above her head and face turned to one side. Then she had seated herself astride the prostrate body and with clever and strong hands manipulated her lungs. At first it seemed hopeless. The friends still wailed and it took all of Jane’s strength, and stubborn determination, combined with Mr. Breckenridge’s, to hold them back from what they thought was their dead darling.

“She has just swallowed a lot of water,” Jane comforted the stricken father. “She wasn’t under water long enough to be drowned. Her heart is all right, isn’t it?”

“As right as a trivet, my dear.”

His “my dear” gave Jane a little thrill.

“She needs all the air she can get and the more people crowd around her the harder it will be for her,” she said to the father, and to herself she wailed: “Where, where is Breck?” and she prayed: “Oh, God, send Breck.”

And Breck came at that moment. Laden with food and with the rest of the Boojummers Charlie and Breck had started back to the spot where they had left the girls. From afar off they saw the crowd and began to run. Suppose something had happened to Jane or Mabel. Breck remembered with thanksgiving that Jane had promised not to go in the water again until he got back.

“Good old Jane wouldn’t break her word for a million,” he said to himself as he raced to see what was the matter anyhow.

Towering above the crowd he saw the head of his own father and something in his face told him there was tragedy in the air.

Breaking through the crowd to the space kept open by the exertions of Jane and Mr. Breckenridge, the son caught his father by the hand.

“Father!” he cried.

“Allen! My son! Look, your sister! She is drowned.”

“No, she is not,” put in Jane reassuringly. “See, her breath is coming back!” and sure enough as Mabel pressed upon the lungs and then removed the pressure a sign of animation could be discerned in the prostrate body. The shoulders heaved slightly and there was a quivering of the long lashes that rested on the marble cheek.

Mabel began to sob.

“Let me take your place, Mabel, please,” suggested Jane.

“Never!” cried Mabel. “I’m just sobbing because I’m so happy. She’s trying to breathe.”

“She’s going to live,” Jane whispered to Breck.

“I’ve always wanted to bring somebody back ever since the time it was Miss Min’s riding skirt and not Miss Min that got drowned,” continued Mabel, still pressing gently but firmly on Lorna’s lungs and then releasing the pressure.

“I believe, little sister, you tried to take in the whole ocean,” said Breck, kneeling by Lorna’s side and taking her hand in his after it was all over and she had come back to consciousness.

“Oh, Allen! And we have found you at last. We have been searching up and down the coast for days and days,” she whispered faintly. “Father didn’t know I understood what he was doing, but he couldn’t fool me. He has been as restless as a caged lion. He was sure he would find you at Nantucket Town and when you weren’t there he sailed away, but only went around the islan............