"It's a mermaid, sure," declared Jack. "I heard her giggle!" and he grabbed out Cora's side comb to arrange his own hair.

"Oh, it is—a girl," whispered Bess to Cora. "I heard her voice."

"I hope she's nice," answered Cora, "but as long as we get some one to pull us off we have no occasion to be particular."

By this time the rowboat was almost alongside.

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack.

"Also hurray!" added Ed.

"Walter, you're a brick!" exclaimed Cora fervently.

The light of the lantern now fell upon the face of the stranger.

The stranded ones looked upon the countenance of a girl, not perhaps a very young girl, nor a very pretty girl, but her face was pleasant, and she pulled a stroke as steady as did Walter.

Walter stood up. He was enveloped in a bath robe!

CHAPTER V

FRIEND OR FOE?

When their launch pulled up to the dock that night, an anxious party greeted them. Nettie had returned from the city, and upon finding the cottage deserted had waited a reasonable length of time before consulting the neighbors. Then she found that the young folks had gone sailing.

That settled it, for the waters of the bay are never considered too reliable, and when the girls did not return by ten o'clock Nettie locked up the cottage and set off for the beach.

Of course, she learned that such a party had gone out, but in what direction no one along the beach front seemed to know. The upper bay course was the last thing thought of, and, when Nettie did succeed in hiring a fisherman to set out and search, he went down the cove opposite to the course taken by Ed in his motor boat.

In half an hour the fisherman returned, and, as luck would have it, he brought with him Walter's cap, which had fallen overboard as the youth started out from the stalled motor boat, and so drifted in the other direction.

In the rapid time that bad news always flies, the report became circulated that a sailing party was lost. Hazel and Paul Hastings, two friends of the motor girls, heard the report at their cottage, and hurried down to the little wharf, where they found Nettie in the deepest distress.

Just as Paul was about to set out himself, the launch chugged in, with the party laughing and singing, Cora playing that same tune, and with our friends was the little lady from the bungalow, she who had rescued Walter, and who went with him to the succor of the stranded ones on the sand bar.

It was a wonderful evening, and when Cora, with Bess, Belle and Miss Robbins, the new girl, stepped ashore, they evidently did not regret the length of time spent upon the water.

Miss Robbins, it developed, was a young doctor, stopping up the river in a bungalow with her mother. Her boat was towed by the launch when they came in, and, although she wanted to row back, the others would not listen to such a proposition.

"It won't take half an hour to get to the garage and bring my car right down here," insisted Walter, "unless you prefer walking up to the cottage with the young ladies, and I can run over there for you. I will have you back in your bungalow in ten minutes more."

Miss Robbins was one of those rare young women who always did what was proposed for her, and she now promptly agreed to go to the cottage, and there await Walter and his car.

As they entered the little parlor Bess drew Cora aside and demanded:

"How ever did Walter find out that she'd just love to go to the Berkshires? And he wants to know if she is homely enough to be our chaperon," she added, with a laugh.

"She is," replied Jack's sister promptly, and in a tone of voice remarkably decisive for Cora, considering.

"But she's nice," objected Bess.

"Very," confirmed Cora, "and we should conform to the rules—homely, experienced and wise."

"She's a lot of those," went on Bess, who seemed taken with the idea of going to the hills with Miss Robbins as chaperon. "Besides, I like her."

"That's a lot more," said Cora, with a laugh. "I like her, too. It seems to me almost providential. We are going to the Berkshires, she wants to go, we can't get a mother to take us, so a young doctor ought to be the——"

"Very thing," finished Bess, and she joined the others indoors.

"But here is Walter back. How quickly he got around! Looks as if Walter is very keen on time—this time," and the tooting of the auto horn outside drew them to the door.

"Walter's privilege," whispered Cora, just as Miss Robbins hurried to the steps.

"Isn't this splendid," said the stranger, with polite gratitude.

"One would not mind getting shipwrecked often for an auto ride. And such an evening! or night, I suppose it is now."

"I'll go along," said Cora, realizing that she ought to do so.

"Me, too," said Jack, thinking he should go with Cora.

Bess and Belle would then be alone with Ed. Of course, Nettie was about, and they might sit on the porch until the others returned. Jack jumped in with Walter, while Cora and Miss Robbins took the second seat. The car was not Walter's runabout, but a larger machine from the garage.

"I'll have to come down in the morning for my boat," said Miss Robbins. "We've been living on soft clams lately, and I have to go out quite a way to dig them."

"Do you dig them?" asked Cora.

"Of course, why not? It is muddy and dirty, but it's lots cheaper than buying them, and then we are sure they are fresh."

"I'll go up in the boat when I fetch the robe back," said Walter, who, it was plain to be seen, liked the excuse to visit the bungalow on the rocks. "What time do you clam?"

"Well, I have to call at the fresh-air camp tomorrow. I'll be back about eleven, and can then get some dug in time for lunch."

"We are bungalowing," spoke Jack. "Why can't we clam, Wallie?"

Walter poked his free elbow into Jack's ribs.

"You can, of course, what's to prevent you," and he gave him such another hard jab that Jack grabbed the elbow. "But I wouldn't start tomorrow—it's unlucky to clam on Wednesday," finished Walter.

The girls were too busy talking to notice the boys' conversation, if the pokes and exclamations might be classified as such.

"Don't you ever sink?" called back Jack to Miss Robbins.

"Oh my, no! I can tell all the safe and unsafe places." And she laughed merrily.

"It is late for us to bring you home," said Cora. "I hope your mother won't be frightened at your absence."

"Oh, no, mother has absolute confidence in me," replied Miss Robbins.
"You see, mother and I are chums. We built the bungalow."

"Built it?" echoed Cora.

"Yes, indeed. You must come around in daylight and inspect it.
Poverty may not be a blessing, but it is a pace-setter."

Walter felt this was the very kind of a girl he had dreamed of. She might not be pretty, but when she tossed the bath robe out to him as he was virtually washed up at her door, tossed it out while she ran to get her own wraps to join him in the rescue, he felt instantly that this girl was a "find." Then, when she spoke of going to the Berkshires, he was further convinced, and now, when she told of building a bungalow—what an acquisition such a