Beside her on the dock sat a thin wisp of a girl whose bathing suit was not even wet.

“Didn’t you go in?” asked Oh-Pshaw.

“No,” replied the girl in a high, piping voice, and Oh-Pshaw recognized her as the dweller in Avernus who had come over that first day and asked them how to make her bed.  Carmen Chadwick, they had found out her name was.

“I’m afraid of the water,” continued Carmen.  “Mamma never let me go in at home.  She doesn’t think it’s quite ladylike for girls to swim.”

Oh-Pshaw smiled in spite of herself.  “Oh, I don’t think it makes girls unladylike to learn how to swim,” she defended.  “It’s considered to be a fine exercise; about the best there is to develop all the muscles.”

“Oh!” said Carmen primly.  “That’s what mamma doesn’t like, to have my muscles all lumpy and developed.  She wants to keep me soft and curved.”

Oh-Pshaw stifled a shriek with difficulty, and turning aside to hide her twinkling eyes she caught sight of the Lone Wolf standing on the dock not far away, gazing mournfully into the Minnow pond.

“What do you think of her?” asked Oh-Pshaw hastily, steering the conversation away from muscles and kindred unladylike topics.

“She’s my Councy,” replied Carmen.

“Your what?”

“My Councy—­my Councilor.  I’m frightened to death of her.”

“Why, what does she do?” asked Oh-Pshaw in consternation.

“She doesn’t do anything, in particular,” replied Carmen.  “She just stares at me solemn as an owl and every little while she puts her head down on her bed under the pillow.  Do you know,” she continued, sinking her voice to a whisper, “I believe there is something the matter with her mind.”

“Really!” said Oh-Pshaw, her voice shaking ever so slightly.

“She doesn’t seem to realize what she is saying, at all,” said Carmen.  “Do you remember when Dr. Grayson introduced her he said she was real good and pious, but she isn’t a bit pious.  She didn’t bring any Bible with her and she didn’t say any prayers before she went to bed.”

“Maybe she said them to herself after she was in bed,” remarked Oh-Pshaw, when she could control her voice again.  “Lots of people do, you know.”

“I don’t believe she did,” replied Carmen in a tone of conviction.  “I watched her.  She made shadow animals with her fingers on the tent wall in the moonlight the minute she got into bed, and she kept it up until she went to sleep.”

Out of the corner of her eye Oh-Pshaw saw the Lone Wolf moving toward them, and hastily changed the subject.  “Why did you put your bathing suit on when you didn’t have any intention of going into the water?” she asked, seizing upon the first thing that came into her mind.

“It looks so well on me,” replied Carmen.  “Don’t you think it does?”

“Y-yes, it d-does,” admitted Oh-Pshaw, her teeth suddenly beginning to chatter, and she realized that she was sitting out too long in her wet bathing suit.  “I g-guess I’ll g-go up and get dressed,” she finished, between the shivers that shook her like a reed.