`` Now , she 's all ready , '' said Jane . `` We must kiss her quiet brows and , Diana , you say , ` Sister , farewell forever , ' and Ruby , you say , ` Farewell , sweet sister , ' both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly can . Anne , for goodness sake smile a little . You know Elaine ` lay as though she smiled . ' That 's better . Now push the flat off . '' The flat was accordingly pushed off , scraping roughly over an old embedded stake in the process . Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before scampering up through the woods , across the road , and down to the lower headland where , as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King , they were to be in readiness to receive the lily maid . For a few minutes Anne , drifting slowly down , enjoyed the romance of her situation to the full . Then something happened not at all romantic . The flat began to leak . In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine to scramble to her feet , pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge through which the water was literally pouring . That sharp stake at the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat . Anne did not know this , but it did not take her long to realize that she was in a dangerous plight . At this rate the flat would fill and sink long before it could drift to the lower headland . Where were the oars ? Left behind at the landing ! Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard ; she was white to the lips , but she did not lose her self-possession . There was one chance -- just one . `` I was horribly frightened , '' she told Mrs. Allan the next day , `` and it seemed like years while the flat was drifting down to the bridge and the water rising in it every moment .
I prayed , Mrs. Allan , most earnestly , but I did n't shut my eyes to pray , XXXXX I knew the only way God could save me was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for me to climb up on it .
At across as before for in of off over to