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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madge Morton's Victory, by Amy D.V. Chalmers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Madge Morton's Victory
+
+Author: Amy D.V. Chalmers
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2008 [EBook #26538]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADGE MORTON'S VICTORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Illustration: Before the Hand Organ Danced a Little Figure.
+Frontispiece.]
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Madge Morton's Victory
+
+By
+AMY D. V. CHALMERS
+
+Author of Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid;
+Madge Morton's Secret, Madge Morton's Trust.
+
+THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+Akron, Ohio--New York
+
+Made in U. S. A.
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright MCMXIV
+By THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+     I.  Commencement Day at Miss Tolliver's        7
+    II.  How it Was All Arranged                   16
+   III.  Tania, a Princess                         24
+    IV.  The Uninvited Guest                       37
+     V.  Tania, a Problem                          51
+    VI.  A Mischievous Mermaid                     58
+   VII.  Captain Jules, Deep Sea Diver             65
+  VIII.  The Wreck of the "Water Witch"            80
+    IX.  The Owner of the Disagreeable Voice       90
+     X.  The Goody-Goody Young Man                100
+    XI.  The Beginning of Trouble                 112
+   XII.  "The Anchorage"                          124
+  XIII.  Tania's Nemesis                          131
+   XIV.  Captain Jules Makes a Promise            141
+    XV.  The Great Adventure                      150
+   XVI.  A Strange Pearl                          161
+  XVII.  The Fairy Godmother's Wish Comes True    172
+ XVIII.  Missing, a Fairy Godmother               180
+   XIX.  The Wicked Genii                         198
+    XX.  A Bow of Scarlet Ribbon                  206
+   XXI.  The Race for Life                        215
+  XXII.  Captain Jules Listens to a Story         224
+ XXIII.  The Victory Over Fate                    232
+  XXIV.  The Little Captain Starts on a Journey   243
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+MADGE MORTON'S VICTORY
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COMMENCEMENT DAY AT MISS TOLLIVER'S
+
+
+"O Phil, dear! It is anything but fair. If you only knew how I hate to
+have to do it!" exclaimed Madge Morton impulsively, throwing her arms
+about her chum's neck and burying her red-brown head in the soft, white
+folds of Phyllis Alden's graduation gown. "No one in our class wishes me
+to be the valedictorian. You know you are the most popular girl in our
+school. Yet here I am the one chosen to stand up before everyone and read
+my stupid essay when your average was just exactly as high as mine."
+
+Madge Morton and Phyllis Alden were alone in their own room at the end of
+the dormitory of Miss Matilda Tolliver's Select School for Girls, at
+Harborpoint, one morning late in May. Through the halls one could hear
+occasional bursts of girlish laughter, and the murmur of voices betokened
+unusual excitement.
+
+It was the morning of the annual spring commencement.
+
+Phyllis slowly unclasped Madge's arms from about her neck and gazed at
+her companion steadfastly, a flush on her usually pale cheeks.
+
+"If you say another word about that old valedictory, I shall never
+forgive you!" she declared vehemently. "You know that Miss Tolliver is
+going to announce to the audience that our averages were the same. You
+were chosen to deliver the valedictory because you can make a speech so
+much better than I. What is the use of bringing up this subject now, just
+a few minutes before our commencement begins? You know how often we have
+talked this over before, and that I told Miss Matilda that I wished you
+to be the valedictorian instead of me, even before she selected you."
+
+Phil's earnest black eyes looked sternly into Madge's troubled blue ones.
+"If you begin worrying about that now, you won't be able to read your
+essay half as well," declared Phil impatiently. "Please sit still for a
+minute and wait until Miss Jenny Ann calls us."
+
+Phil pushed Madge gently toward the big armchair. Then she walked over to
+stand by the window, in order to watch the carriages drive up to Miss
+Tolliver's door and to keep her back turned directly upon her friend
+Madge.
+
+The little captain sat very still for a few minutes. She had on an
+exquisite white organdie gown, a white sash, white slippers and white
+silk stockings. In the knot of sunny curled hair drawn high upon her head
+she wore a single white rose. A bunch of roses lay in her lap, also a
+manuscript in Madge's slightly vertical handwriting, which she fingered
+restlessly.
+
+The silence grew monotonous to Madge.
+
+"Are you angry with me, Phil?" she asked forlornly.
+
+Madge and Phyllis Alden had been best friends for four years, and had
+never had a real disagreement until this morning.
+
+Phyllis was too honest to be deceitful. "I am a little cross," she
+admitted without turning around. "I wish Lillian and Eleanor would come
+upstairs to tell us how many people have arrived for the commencement."
+
+Madge started across the room toward Phil. But Phyllis's back was
+uncompromising. She pretended not to hear her friend's light step.
+Suddenly Madge's expression changed. The color rose to her face and her
+eyes flashed.
+
+"I won't apologize to you, Phil," she said. "I had intended to, but I see
+no reason why I should not say it is unfair for me to be the
+valedictorian when you have the same claim to it that I have. It is
+hateful in you not to understand how I feel about it. I am going to find
+Miss Jenny Ann." Madge's voice broke.
+
+A knock on the door interrupted the two girls. Madge opened the door to a
+boy, who handed her a small parcel addressed in a curious handwriting to
+"Miss Madge Morton." The letters were printed, but the writing did not
+look like a child's. It was the fiftieth graduating gift that she had
+received. Phil's number had already reached the half-hundred mark.
+
+Madge dropped her newest package on the bed without opening it. She was
+half-way out in the hall when Phyllis pulled her back.
+
+"Look me straight in the face," ordered Phil. Madge obeyed, the flash in
+her eyes fading swiftly. "Now, see here, dear," argued Phyllis, "suppose
+that Miss Matilda had chosen me to deliver the valedictory instead of
+you, wouldn't you have been glad?"
+
+Madge nodded happily. "I should say I would," she murmured fervently.
+
+Phyllis laughed, then leaned over and kissed her friend triumphantly.
+
+"There, you have said just what I wanted to make you say," went on Phil.
+"You say you would be glad if Miss Tolliver had chosen me for the
+valedictorian instead of you. Why can't you let me have the same feeling
+about you? Please, please understand, Madge, dear"--the tears started to
+Phil's eyes--"that no one has been unfair to me because you were Miss
+Matilda's choice."
+
+Madge glanced nervously at the little gold clock on their mantel shelf.
+"It is nearly time for the entertainment to begin, isn't it?" she
+inquired. "I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will call us in time. What a lot of
+noise the girls are making in the hall!"
+
+She idly untied her latest graduating gift. It was a small box, made
+after a fashion of long years ago, and its tops and sides were encrusted
+with tiny shells. On one side of the box the word "Madge" was worked out
+in tiny shells as clear and beautiful as jewels. Inside the box, on a
+piece of cotton, was a single, wonderful pearl. It was unset, but the two
+girls realized that it was rarely beautiful. There was no name in the
+box, no card to show from whom it came.
+
+Madge turned the box upside down and peered inside of it. "I don't know
+who could have sent this to me," she declared, in a puzzled fashion.
+"Mrs. Curtis is the only rich person I know in the whole world, and she
+has already given us her presents. I must show this to Uncle and Aunt. I
+am afraid they won't wish me to keep it. But I don't know how we are ever
+going to return it to the giver when he or she is anonymous."
+
+"Isn't that Miss Jenny Ann calling?" Madge turned pale with the
+excitement of the coming hour and thrust the gift under her pillow.
+
+Phyllis picked up a great bunch of red roses. The eventful moment had
+arrived. The graduating exercises at Miss Matilda Tolliver's were about
+to begin!
+
+Neither of the two girls knew how they walked up on the stage. Before
+them swam "a sea of upturned faces." It was impossible to tell one person
+from another. When Madge and Phil overcame their fright they discovered
+that they were among the twelve girl graduates, who formed a white
+semi-circle about the stage, and that Miss Matilda Tolliver was making an
+address of welcome to the audience.
+
+Phyllis had no dreaded speech ahead of her. She looked out over the
+audience and saw her father and mother, Dr. and Mrs. Alden; and Madge's
+uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Butler; but Madge could think of nothing
+save the terrifying fact that she must soon deliver her valedictory.
+
+"Madge," whispered Phil softly, "don't look so frightened. You know you
+have made speeches before and have acted before people. I am not a bit
+afraid you will fail. See if you can find Mrs. Curtis and Tom. There they
+are, smiling at us from behind Eleanor and Lillian."
+
+Readers of "MADGE MORTON, CAPTAIN OF THE 'MERRY MAID'," will remember the
+delightful fashion in which Madge Morton, Eleanor Butler, Lillian Seldon
+and Phyllis Alden spent a summer on a houseboat, which they evolved from
+an old canal boat and named the "Merry Maid."
+
+How they anchored at quiet spots along Chesapeake Bay, made the
+acquaintance of Mrs. Curtis, a wealthy widow, and what came of the
+friendship that sprang up between her and Madge Morton made a story well
+worth the telling.
+
+In "MADGE MORTON'S SECRET" the scene of their second houseboat adventure
+found them at Old Point Comfort, where, as Mrs. Curtis's guests, they
+partook of the social side of the Army and Navy life to be found there.
+The origin of Captain Madge's secret, and of how she kept it in spite of
+the humiliation and sorrow it entailed, the mysterious way in which the
+"Merry Maid" slipped her cable and drifted through heavy seas to a
+deserted island, where her crew lived the lives of girl Crusoes for many
+weeks, form a narrative of lively interest.
+
+In "MADGE MORTON'S TRUST" the further adventures of the "Merry Maid" were
+fully related. For the sake of the trip the happy houseboat girls saddled
+themselves with Miss Betsey Taylor, a crotchety spinster, who was
+troubled with nerves, and who offered to pay liberally for her passage on
+their cosy "Ship of Dreams."
+
+Madge's faith and unshakable trust in David Brewster, a poor young man
+who did the work on Tom Curtis's yacht, which made the trip with the
+"Merry Maid," her championing of David when suspicion pointed darkly
+toward him as a thief, and her unswerving loyalty to the unhappy youth
+until his innocence was established, revealed the little captain in the
+light of a staunch true comrade and doubly endeared her to all her
+companions.
+
+Madge heard Miss Matilda Tolliver announce that the valedictory would be
+delivered by Miss Madge Morton. Phyllis gave her companion a little
+nudge, and somehow Madge arrived at the front of the stage and stood
+under a huge arch of flowers. Just above her head swung a great bell.
+Everyone was smiling at her. Madge was seized with a dreadful case of
+stage fright. Her tongue felt dry and parched. She tried to speak, but no
+sound came forth.
+
+Mrs. Curtis's lovely face, with its crown of soft, white hair, smiled
+encouragingly at her. Tom was crimson with embarrassment. Lillian and
+Eleanor held each other's hands. Would Madge never begin her
+valedictory?
+
+She tried again. No one heard her except her friends and teachers on the
+stage. Her voice was no louder than a faint whisper.
+
+Miss Tolliver leaned over. "Madge, speak more distinctly," she ordered.
+
+Then the little captain realized that the most humiliating moment of her
+whole life had arrived. She had been selected as the valedictorian of her
+class, she had been chosen above her beloved Phil because of her gift as
+a speaker, yet she would be obliged to return to her seat without having
+delivered a line of her address. She would be disgraced forever!
+
+Madge's knees shook. Her lips trembled. Tears swam mistily in her eyes.
+She was a lovely picture despite her fright.
+
+At eighteen she was in the first glory of her youth, a tall, slender
+girl, with a curious warmth and glow of life. Her lips were deeply
+crimson, her hair a soft brown, with red and gold lights in it, and her
+eyes were full of the eagerness that foreshadows both happiness and
+pain.
+
+Phil and Miss Jenny Ann were exchanging glances of despair--Madge had
+broken down, there was no hope for her. Suddenly her face broke into one
+of its sunniest smiles. She lifted her head. Without glancing at the
+paper she held in her hand she began her address in a clear, penetrating
+voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOW IT WAS ALL ARRANGED
+
+
+Madge's valedictory address was almost over. She had spoken of
+"Friendship," what it meant to a girl at school and what it must mean to
+a woman when the larger and more important difficulties come into her
+life. "Schoolgirl friendships are of no small consequence," declaimed
+Madge; "the friendships made in youth are the truest, after all!"
+
+Phil listened to her chum's voice, her eyes misty with tears. Only a
+half-hour before she and her beloved Madge had come very near to having
+the first real quarrel of their lives. Phil turned her gaze from Madge to
+glance idly at the arch of flowers above her friend's head. Phil supposed
+that she must be dizzy from the heat of the room, or else that she could
+not see distinctly because of her tears; the arch seemed to be swaying
+lightly from side to side, as though it were blown by the wind. Yet the
+room was perfectly still. Phil looked again. She must be wrong. The arch
+was built of a framework of wood. It was heavy and she did not believe it
+would easily topple down.
+
+Madge was happily unconscious of the wobbling arch. A few more lines and
+her speech would be ended! There was unbroken silence in the roomy chapel
+of the girls' school, where the commencement exercises were being held.
+Suddenly some one in the back part of the room jumped to his feet. A
+hoarse voice shouted, "Madge!"
+
+Madge started in amazement. Her manuscript dropped to the ground. Every
+face but hers blanched with terror. The swaying arch was now visible to
+other people besides Phil. Tom leaped to his feet, but he was tightly
+wedged in between rows of women. Phil Alden made a forward spring just as
+the arch tumbled. She was not in time to save Madge, but some one else
+had saved her; for, before Phil could reach the front of the stage,
+Madge's name had been called again. Although the voice was an unknown
+one, Madge instinctively obeyed it. She made a little movement, leaning
+out to see who had summoned her, and the arch crashed down just at her
+back.
+
+The quick cry from the audience frightened Madge, whose face was turned
+away from the wreck. She swung around without discovering her rescuer.
+Some one had fallen on the stage. Phyllis Alden had reached her friend's
+side, not in time to save her, but to receive, herself, a heavy blow from
+the great bell that was suspended from the arch.
+
+Madge dropped on the stage at Phil's side, forgetting her speech and the
+presence of strangers.
+
+Miss Tolliver and Miss Jenny Ann lifted Phyllis before Dr. Alden had had
+time to reach the stage. There was a dark bruise over Phil's forehead. In
+a moment she opened her eyes and smiled. "I am not a bit hurt, Miss
+Matilda; _do_ let the exercises go on," she begged faintly. "Let Madge
+and me go up to the front of the stage and bow, Miss Matilda. Then I can
+show people that I am all right. We must not spoil our commencement in
+this way."
+
+Miss Matilda agreed to this, and Madge and Phyllis went forward to the
+center of the stage. A storm of applause greeted them. Madge and Phil
+were a little overcome at the ovation. Madge supposed that they were
+being applauded because of Phil's heroism, and Phil presumed that the
+demonstration was meant for Madge's valedictory, therefore neither girl
+knew just what to do.
+
+It was then that Miss Matilda Tolliver came forward. She was usually a
+very severe and imposing looking person. Most of her pupils were
+dreadfully afraid of her. But the accident that had so nearly injured her
+two favorite graduates had completely upset her nerves. Instead of making
+a formal speech, as she had planned to do, she stepped between the two
+girls, taking a hand of each. "I had meant to introduce Miss Alden a
+little later on to our friends at the commencement exercises," announced
+Miss Tolliver, "but I believe I would rather do it now. I wish to state
+that, although Miss Morton has delivered the valedictory, Miss Phyllis
+Alden's average during the four years she has spent at my preparatory
+school has been equally high. It was her wish that Miss Morton should be
+chosen to deliver the valedictory. But Miss Alden's friends have another
+honor which they wish to bestow upon her. She has been voted, without her
+knowledge, the most popular girl in my school. Her fellow students have
+asked me to present her with this pin as a mark of their affection."
+
+Miss Matilda leaned over, and before Phil could grasp what was happening
+had pinned in the soft folds of her organdie gown the class pin, which
+was usually an enameled shield with a crown of laurel above it; but the
+center of Phil's shield was formed of small rubies and the crown of tiny
+diamonds.
+
+Phyllis turned scarlet with embarrassment, but Madge's eyes sparkled with
+delight. She was no longer ashamed of having been chosen as
+valedictorian. In spite of herself, Phyllis Alden was the star of their
+commencement.
+
+It was not until the four girls were seated with their dear ones about a
+round luncheon table in the largest hotel in Harborpoint that Madge
+suddenly recalled the stranger whose warning cry had probably saved her
+from a serious hurt.
+
+Mrs. Curtis and Tom were entertaining in honor of Madge and Phyllis.
+There were no other guests except the two houseboat girls, Eleanor and
+Lillian, Dr. and Mrs. Alden, and Mr. and Mrs. Butler.
+
+Madge sat next to Tom Curtis, and during the progress of the luncheon
+managed to say softly: "Did you see who it was that called my name so
+strangely this morning, Tom? I was so frightened at having to deliver my
+valedictory that when I heard that sudden shout, 'Madge!' I was too much
+confused to recognize the voice."
+
+Tom shook his head. "I don't know who it was. I heard the voice but
+couldn't discover its owner. It must have been some one at the very back
+of the room, for no one in the audience seems to know who called out to
+you."
+
+"I suppose I'll never know," sighed Madge. "It is a real commencement day
+mystery, isn't it?"
+
+Tom nodded smilingly. "By the way, Madge, where are the houseboat girls
+going to spend the summer after you come to Madeleine's wedding?" he
+asked. "You must be tired after your winter's work."
+
+Madge shook her head soberly. "We are not going to be on the houseboat
+this year," she whispered. "Going to New York to be bridesmaids is about
+as much as four girls can arrange. We haven't even dared to think of the
+houseboat."
+
+"I have," interposed Phyllis, who had heard the remark and the reply,
+"but we don't wish our families to know. You see, Madge and I are hoping
+and planning to go to college next winter, so, of course, we can't afford
+another summer holiday," she ended under her breath.
+
+"What's that, Phil?" inquired Dr. Alden from the other end of the table.
+
+Phil blushed. "Nothing important, Father," she answered.
+
+"Oh, then I must have been mistaken," replied Dr. Alden, "for I thought I
+caught the magic word, 'houseboat.' No one of you girls has ever spoken
+of the 'Merry Maid' as unimportant."
+
+A cloud instantaneously overspread five faces about the luncheon table.
+Neither Mrs. Curtis nor Dr. Alden realized that in mentioning the
+houseboat they had forced the houseboat passengers to break a vow of
+silence. Only the day before the five of them had met in Miss Jenny Ann
+Jones's room. There they had solemnly pledged themselves that, since it
+was impossible for them to have this year's vacation aboard the "Merry
+Maid," they would bear the sorrow in silence. This time there was no
+"Miss Betsey" to pay the expenses of the trip. The girls and Miss Jenny
+Ann hadn't a dollar to spare. The cost of going to Madeleine Curtis's New
+York wedding was appalling to all of the girls except Lillian, whose
+parents were in affluent circumstances. But, of course, Madeleine was
+almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story
+will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and
+Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse
+plight than that in which he found the two girls.
+
+"Mrs. Curtis," remarked Dr. Alden in the midst of the mournful silence,
+"Mr. and Mrs. Butler, my wife and I have just been talking things over.
+We have decided that it would be a good thing for our girls to spend
+several weeks on board their houseboat. But, of course, if they have
+decided differently----"
+
+It was a good thing that Mrs. Curtis was not giving a formal luncheon. A
+united shriek of delight suddenly arose from four throats. Madge sprang
+from the table to hug her uncle, Eleanor blew kisses to her mother from
+across the room, Lillian clapped both hands, and Miss Jenny Ann smiled
+rapturously.
+
+Phil's face was the only serious one. "Are you sure we can afford it,
+Father?" she queried.
+
+Dr. Alden nodded convincingly. "For a few weeks, certainly," he
+returned.
+
+"Then we don't need to worry about afterward," rejoined Madge. "And don't
+you think, girls, it will be perfectly great, so long as we are going to
+Madeleine's wedding in New York, for us to spend this holiday at the
+seashore?"
+
+"Where, Madge?" asked Lillian.
+
+"I'll tell you," answered Mrs. Curtis, "only, not to-day. It is a secret.
+Here is our pineapple lemonade. Let's hope for the happiest of holidays
+for the little captain and her crew aboard the good ship 'Merry Maid'."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TANIA, A PRINCESS
+
+
+"Madge, do you think there is any chance that Tom won't meet us?"
+inquired Eleanor Butler nervously. "I do wish we could have come on to
+New York with Lillian, Phil, and Miss Jenny Ann instead of making that
+visit to Baltimore. It seems so funny that they have been in New York two
+whole days before us. I suppose they have seen Madeleine's presents, and
+our bridesmaids' dresses--and everything!"
+
+Eleanor sighed as she leaned back luxuriously in the chair of the Pullman
+coach, gazing down the aisle at her fellow passengers.
+
+Madge was occupied in staring very hard at her reflection in the small
+mirror between her seat and Eleanor's. She had wrinkled her small nose
+and was surreptitiously applying powder to the tip end of it.
+
+"Of course Tom and the girls will meet us, Eleanor," she replied
+emphatically. "Tom would expect us to be lost forever if we were to be
+turned loose in New York by ourselves. Oh, dear me, isn't it too splendid
+that we are going to be Madeleine's bridesmaids? I wonder if we shall
+look very 'country' before so many society people?"
+
+"Of course we shall," returned Eleanor calmly. "You need not look at
+yourself again in that mirror. You are very well satisfied with yourself,
+aren't you?" teased Eleanor.
+
+Madge blushed and laughed. "I _do_ like our clothes, Nellie," she
+admitted candidly. "You know perfectly well that we have never had
+tailored suits before in our lives. You do look too sweet in that pale
+gray, like a little nun. That pink rose in your hat gives just the touch
+of color you need. I am sure I don't see why you are so sure we shall
+seem countrified," ended Madge. She had liked her reflection in the
+glass. She wore a light-weight blue serge traveling suit without a
+wrinkle in it, a spotless white linen waist, and her new hat was
+particularly attractive. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed and her eyes
+glowed with the excitement of arriving for the first time in New York
+City.
+
+"We are almost in Jersey City now, aren't we, Madge?" exclaimed Eleanor,
+making a leap for her bag, which promptly tumbled out of the rack above
+and fell directly on the head of a young man who was walking down the
+aisle of the car.
+
+Madge giggled. Eleanor, however, was crimson with mortification. The
+young man did not appear to be pleased. The girls had a brief glimpse of
+him. He had blue eyes and sandy hair and was exceedingly tall. Eleanor's
+bag had knocked his glasses off and he was obliged to stoop in search of
+them in the aisle.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry," apologized Eleanor in her soft, Southern voice, as
+she picked up the glasses and restored them to their owner. "I am glad
+they were not broken."
+
+The young man paid not the slightest attention to her apology.
+
+"Hurry, Nellie," advised Madge, "it is nearly time for us to get off the
+train and your hat is on crooked. Don't be such a timid little goose! You
+are actually trembling. Of course Tom or some one will meet us, and if
+they don't I shall not be in the least frightened." Madge announced this
+grandly. "That whistle means we are entering Jersey City. We will find
+Tom waiting for us at the gate."
+
+Eleanor obediently followed Madge out of their coach. The little captain
+seemed older and more self-confident since she had been graduated at Miss
+Tolliver's, but Nellie hoped devoutly that her cousin would not become
+imbued with the impression that she was really grown-up. It would spoil
+their good times.
+
+The two girls had never seen such a headlong rush of people in their
+lives. They clung desperately to their bags when a porter attempted to
+carry them. A man bumped violently against Madge, but he made no effort
+to apologize as he rushed on through the crowd.
+
+"I never saw so many people in such a hurry in my life," declared Nellie
+pettishly. "They behave as though they thought New York City were on fire
+and they were all rushing to put the fire out. I shall be glad when Tom
+takes charge of us."
+
+Once through the great iron gates the girls looked anxiously about for
+Tom, but saw no trace of him.
+
+"I suppose Tom must have missed the ferry," declared Madge with pretended
+cheerfulness. "We shall have to wait here for only about ten minutes
+until the next ferry boat comes across from New York."
+
+When fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Tom, Madge
+began to feel worried.
+
+"Madge, I am sure you have made some kind of mistake," argued Eleanor
+plaintively. "I know Mrs. Curtis would not fail to have some one here on
+time to meet us for anything in the world. Perhaps Tom wrote for us to
+come across the ferry, and that he would meet us on the New York side.
+Where is his letter?"
+
+"It is in my trunk, Nellie," replied Madge in a crestfallen manner. She
+was not nearly so grown-up or so sure of herself as she had been half an
+hour before. "I know it was silly in me not to have brought Tom's letter
+with me, but I was so sure that I knew just what it said. Perhaps we had
+better go on over to New York. Let's hurry. Perhaps that boat is just
+about to start."
+
+The two young women hurried aboard the boat, which left the dock a moment
+later, just as a tall, fair-haired young man, accompanied by two girls,
+hurried upon the scene. The young man was Tom Curtis and the young women
+were Phyllis Alden and Lillian Seldon.
+
+In the meantime Madge and her cousin had crossed the river and had landed
+on the New York side. What was the dreadful roar and rumble that met
+their ears? It sounded like an earthquake, with the noise of frightened
+people shrieking above it. After a horrified moment it dawned on the two
+little strangers that this was only the usual roar of New York, which Tom
+Curtis had so often described to them.
+
+"There isn't any use of our staying here very long, Eleanor," declared
+Madge, feeling a great wave of loneliness and fear sweep over her. "An
+accident must have happened to Tom's automobile on his way to the train
+to meet us. I am afraid we were foolish not to have stayed at the Jersey
+City station. I am sure Tom wrote he would meet us there. I have behaved
+like a perfect goose. It is because I boasted so much about not being
+frightened and knowing what to do. But I _do_ know Mrs. Curtis's address.
+We can take a cab and drive up there."
+
+Eleanor would fall in with Madge's plans to a certain point; then she
+would strike. Now she positively refused to get into a cab. Her mother
+and father and Miss Jenny Ann had warned her never to trust herself in a
+cab in a strange city. New York was too terrifying! Eleanor would search
+for Mrs. Curtis's home on foot, in a car, or a bus, but in a cab she
+would not ride.
+
+Madge was obliged to give in gracefully. A policeman showed the girls to
+a Twenty-third Street car. He explained that when they came to the Third
+Avenue L they must get out of the car and take the elevated train uptown,
+since Madge had explained to him that Mrs. Curtis lived on Seventieth
+Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.
+
+There was only one point that the policeman failed to make clear to
+Eleanor and Madge. He neglected to tell them that elevated trains, as
+well as other cars, travel both up and down New York City, and the way to
+discover which way the "L" train is moving is to consult the signs on the
+steps that lead up to the elevated road. The policeman supposed that the
+two young women would make this observation for themselves. Of course,
+under ordinary circumstances, Madge and Nellie would have been more
+sensible, but they were frightened and confused at the bare idea of being
+alone in New York and consequently lost their heads, and they dashed up
+the Third Avenue elevated steps without looking for signs, settled
+themselves in the train and were off, as they supposed, for Seventieth
+Street.
+
+They were too much interested in gazing into upstairs windows, where
+hundreds of people were at work in tiny, dark rooms, to pay much
+attention to the first stops at stations that their train made. They knew
+they were still some distance from Mrs. Curtis's. Madge was completely
+fascinated at the spectacle of a fat, frowsy woman holding a baby by its
+skirt on the sill of a six-story tenement house. Just as the car went by
+the baby made a leap toward the train. Madge smothered her scream as the
+woman jerked the child out of danger just in time. Then it suddenly
+occurred to her that this was hardly the kind of neighborhood in which to
+find Mrs. Curtis's house. The sign at the next stop was a name and not a
+street number. It could not be possible that she and Eleanor had made
+another mistake!
+
+Madge hurried back to the end of the car to find the conductor.
+
+"We wish to get out at the nearest station to Seventieth Street and
+Lexington Avenue," she declared timidly.
+
+The man paid not the slightest attention to her. Madge repeated her
+question in a somewhat bolder tone.
+
+"You ain't going to get off near Seventieth Street for some time if you
+keep a-traveling away from it," retorted the conductor crossly. "You've
+got on a downtown 'L' 'stead of an up. Better change at the next station.
+You'll find an uptown train across the street," the man ended more
+kindly, seeing the look of consternation on Madge's white face.
+
+The girls walked sadly down the elevated steps, dragging their bags,
+which seemed to grow heavier with every moment. They found themselves in
+one of the downtown foreign slums of New York City. It was a bright,
+early summer afternoon. The streets were swarming with grown people and
+children. Pushcarts lined the sidewalks. On an opposite corner a hand
+organ played an Italian song. In front of it was a small open space,
+encircled by a group of idle men and women. Before the organ danced a
+little figure that Madge and Eleanor stopped to watch. They forgot their
+own bewilderment in gazing at the strange sight. The dancer was a little
+girl about twelve years old, as thin as a wraith. Her hair was black and
+hung in straight, short locks to her shoulders. Her eyes were so big and
+burned so brightly that it was difficult to notice any other feature of
+her face. The child looked like a tropical flower. Her face was white,
+but her cheeks glowed with two scarlet patches. She flung her little arms
+over her head, pirouetted and stood on her tip toes. She did not seem to
+see the curious crowd about her, but kept her eyes turned toward the sky.
+Her dancing was as much a part of nature as the summer sunshine, and
+Madge and Eleanor were bewitched.
+
+A rough woman came out of a nearby doorway. She stood with her hands on
+her hips looking in the direction of the music. "Tania!" she called
+angrily. Elbowing her way through the crowd, she jostled Madge as she
+passed by her. "Tania!" she cried again. The men and women spectators let
+the woman make her way through them as though they knew her and were
+afraid of her heavy fist. Only the child appeared to be unconscious of
+the woman's approach. Suddenly a big, red arm was thrust out. It caught
+the little girl by the skirt. With the other hand she rained down blows
+on the child's upturned face. One blow followed the other in swift
+succession. The little dancer made no outcry. She simply put one thin arm
+over her head for protection.
+
+The music went on gayly. No one of the watching men and women tried to
+stop the woman's brutality. But Madge was not used to the indifference of
+the New York crowd. Like a flash of lightning she darted away from
+Eleanor and rushed over to the woman, who was dragging the child along
+and cuffing her at each step.
+
+"Stop striking that child!" she ordered sharply. "How can you be so
+cruel? You are a wicked, heartless woman!"
+
+The woman paid no attention to Madge. She did not seem even to have heard
+her, but lifted her big, coarse arm for another blow.
+
+Madge's breath came in swift gasps. "Don't strike that child again," she
+repeated. "I don't know who she is, nor what she has done, but she is too
+little for you to beat her like that. I won't endure it," the little
+captain ended in sudden passion.
+
+The woman turned her cruel, bloodshot eyes slowly toward Madge. She was
+one of the strongest and most brutal characters in the slums of New York,
+and few dared to oppose her. She was even a terror to the policemen in
+the neighborhood.
+
+"Git out!" she said briefly.
+
+Her arm descended. It did not strike the child. Quick as a flash, Madge
+Morton had flung herself between the woman and the child. For a moment
+the blow almost stunned the girl. The East Side crowd closed in on the
+girl and the woman. If there was going to be a fight, the spectators did
+not intend to miss it. Eleanor was numb with fear and sympathy. She did
+not know whether to be more frightened for Madge than sorry for the
+child.
+
+The woman's face was mottled and crimson with anger. Madge's face was
+very white. She held her head high and looked her enemy full in the
+face.
+
+"Git out of this and stop your interferin'!" shouted the virago. "This
+here child belongs to me and I'll do what I like with her. If you are one
+of them social settlers coming around into poor people's places and
+meddlin' with their business, you'd better git back where you belong or
+I'll social-settle you."
+
+At this moment a thin, hot hand caught hold of Madge's and pulled it
+gently. Madge gazed down into a little face, whose expression she never
+forgot. It was whiter than it had been before. The scarlet color had gone
+out of the cheeks and the big, black eyes burned brighter. But there was
+not the slightest trace of fear in the look. Instead, the child's lips
+were curved into an elf-like smile.
+
+"Don't stay here, lady, please," she begged. "The ogress will be horrid
+to you. She can't hurt me. You see, I am an enchanted Princess."
+
+An instant later the child received a savage blow from the woman's hard
+hand full in the face without shrinking. It was Madge who winced. Tears
+rose to her eyes. She put her arms about the child and tried to shelter
+her.
+
+"Don't be calling me no names, Tania," the woman cried, dragging at the
+child's thin skirts. "Jest you come along home with me and you'll git
+what is comin' to you, you good-for-nothin' little imp."
+
+"Is she your mother?" asked Madge doubtfully, gazing at the brutal woman
+and the strange child.
+
+Tania shook her black head scornfully. "Oh, dear, no," she answered. "It
+is only that I have to live with her now, while I am under the
+enchantment. Some day, when the wicked spell is broken, I shall go away,
+perhaps to a wonderful castle. My name is Titania. I think it means that
+I am the Queen of the Fairies."
+
+The woman laughed brutishly. "Queen of gutter, you are, Miss Tania. I'll
+tan you," she jeered, as she dragged the little girl from Madge's arms.
+
+The little captain looked despairingly about her. There, a calm witness
+of the entire scene, was a big New York policeman. "Officer," commanded
+Madge indignantly, "make that woman leave that child alone."
+
+The big policeman looked sheepish. "I can't do nothing with Sal," he
+protested. "If I make her stop beating Tania now, she'll only be meaner
+to her when she gets her indoors. Best leave 'em alone, I think. I have
+interfered, but the child says she don't mind. I don't think she does,
+somehow; she's such a queer young 'un'."
+
+Sal was now engaged in shaking Tania as she pushed her along in front of
+her. Madge and Eleanor were in despair.
+
+Suddenly a well-dressed young man appeared in the crowd. There was
+something oddly familiar in his appearance to Eleanor, but she failed to
+remember where she had seen him before. "Sal!" he called out sharply,
+"leave Tania alone!"
+
+Instantly the woman obeyed him. She slunk back into her open doorway. The
+crowd melted as though by magic; they also recognized the young man's
+authority. A moment later he was gone. Madge, Eleanor, and the strange
+little girl stood on the street corner almost alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE UNINVITED GUEST
+
+
+"Are you good fairies who have strayed away from home?" inquired Tania,
+calmly gazing first at Madge and then at Eleanor. She was perfectly
+self-possessed and asked her question as though it were the most natural
+one in the world.
+
+The two girls stared hard at the child. Was her mind affected, or was she
+playing a game with them? Tania seemed not in the least disturbed. "Do go
+away now," she urged. "I am all right, but something may happen to you."
+
+"You odd little thing!" laughed Madge. "We are not fairies. We are girls
+and we are lost. We are on our way to visit a friend, Mrs. Curtis, who
+lives on Seventieth Street near Fifth Avenue. She will be dreadfully
+worried about us if we don't hurry on. But what can we do for you? We
+can't take you with us, yet you must not go back to that wicked woman."
+
+"Oh, yes, I must," returned Tania cheerfully. "I am not afraid of her.
+When the time comes I shall go away."
+
+"But who will take care of you, baby?" asked Eleanor. "Fairies don't live
+in big cities like New York. They live only in beautiful green woods and
+fields."
+
+The black head nodded wisely. "Good fairies are everywhere," she
+declared. "But I can make handfuls of pennies when I like," she continued
+boastfully. "Let me show you how you must go on your way."
+
+"You can't possibly know, little girl," replied Madge gently. "It is so
+far from here."
+
+However, it was Tania who finally saw the two lost houseboat girls on
+board the elevated train that would take them to within a few blocks of
+their destination. Tania explained that she knew almost all of New York,
+and particularly she liked to wander up and down Fifth Avenue to gaze at
+the beautiful palaces. She was not young, she was really dreadfully
+old--almost thirteen!
+
+The last look Madge and Eleanor had of Tania the child had apparently
+forgotten all about them. She was gazing up in the air, above all the
+traffic and roar of New York, with a happy smile on her elfish face.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My dear children, I wouldn't have had it happen for worlds!" was Mrs.
+Curtis's first greeting as she came out from behind the rose-colored
+curtains of her drawing room. "Tom has been telephoning me frantically
+for the past hour. How did he and the girls miss you? You poor dears, you
+must be nearly tired to death after your unpleasant experience."
+
+While Mrs. Curtis was talking she was leading her visitors up a beautiful
+carved oak staircase to the floor above. Her house was so handsomely
+furnished that Madge and Eleanor were startled at its luxurious
+appointments.
+
+Mrs. Curtis brought her guests into a large sleeping room which opened
+into another bedroom which was for the use of Phil and Lillian.
+
+Madeleine was to be married the next afternoon at four o 'clock. The
+girls had not brought their bridesmaids' dresses along with them, as Mrs.
+Curtis had asked to be allowed to present them with their gowns.
+
+It was all that Madge could do not to beg Mrs. Curtis to show them their
+frocks. She hoped that their hostess would offer to do so, but during the
+rest of the day their time was occupied in seeing Madeleine, her hundreds
+of beautiful wedding gifts, meeting Judge Hilliard all over again, and
+being introduced to Mrs. Curtis's other guests. The four girls went to
+bed at midnight, thinking of their bridesmaids' gowns, but without having
+had the chance even to inquire about them.
+
+Mrs. Curtis belonged to the old and infinitely more aristocratic portion
+of New York society. She did not belong to the new smart set, which
+numbers nearer four thousand, and does so much to make society
+ridiculous. Madeleine had asked that she might be married very quietly.
+She had never become used to the gay world of fashion after her strange
+and unhappy youth. It made the girls and their teacher smile to see what
+Mrs. Curtis considered a quiet wedding.
+
+Miss Jenny Ann and her four charges had their coffee and rolls in Madge's
+room the next morning at about nine o'clock. Madge peeped out of the
+doorway, there were so many odd noises in the hall. The upstairs hall was
+a mass of beautiful evergreens. Men were hanging garlands of smilax on
+the balusters. The house was heavy with the scent of American Beauty
+roses. But there was no sign of Mrs. Curtis or of Madeleine or Tom, and
+still no mention of the bridesmaids' costumes for the girls.
+
+Lillian Seldon was looking extremely forlorn. "Suppose Mrs. Curtis has
+forgotten our frocks!" she suggested tragically, as Madge came back with
+her report of the house's decorations. "She has had such an awful lot to
+attend to that she may not have remembered that she offered to give us
+our frocks. Won't it be dreadful if Madeleine has to be married without
+our being bridesmaids after all?"
+
+"O Lillian! what a dreadful idea!" exclaimed Eleanor.
+
+Even Phyllis looked sober and Miss Jenny Ann looked exceedingly
+uncomfortable.
+
+"O, you geese! cheer up!" laughed Madge. "I know Mrs. Curtis would not
+disappoint us for worlds. Why, she has all our measures. She couldn't
+forget. Oh, dear, does my breakfast gown look all right? There is some
+one knocking at our door. It may be that Mrs. Curtis has sent up our
+frocks."
+
+"Then open the door, for goodness' sake," begged Eleanor. "Your breakfast
+gown is lovely; only at home we called it a wrapper, but then you were
+not visiting on Fifth Avenue."
+
+Madge made a saucy little face at Eleanor. Then she saw a group of
+persons standing just outside their bedroom door. A man-servant held four
+enormous white boxes in his arms; a maid was almost obscured by four
+other boxes equally large. Behind her servants stood Mrs. Curtis, smiling
+radiantly, while Tom was peeping over his mother's shoulder.
+
+Madge clasped her hands fervently, breathing a quick sigh of relief. "Our
+bridesmaids' dresses! I'm too delighted for words."
+
+"Were you thinking about them, dear?" apologized Mrs. Curtis. "I ought to
+have sent the frocks to you sooner, but I wanted to bring them myself,
+and this is the first moment I have had. You'll let Tom come in to see
+them, too, won't you?"
+
+The man-servant departed, but Mrs. Curtis kept the maid to help her lift
+out the gowns from the billows of white tissue paper that enfolded them.
+She lifted out one dress, Miss Jenny Ann another, and the maid the other
+two.
+
+The girls were speechless with pleasure.
+
+Mrs. Curtis, however, was disappointed. Perhaps the girls did not like
+the costumes. She had used her own taste without consulting them. Then
+she glanced at the little group and was reassured by their radiant
+faces.
+
+"O you wonderful fairy godmother!" exclaimed Madge. "Cinderella's dress
+at the ball couldn't have been half so lovely!"
+
+Madeleine's wedding was to be in white and green. The bridesmaids' frocks
+were of the palest green silk, covered with clouds of white chiffon.
+About the bottom of the skirts were bands of pale green satin and the
+chiffon was caught here and there with embroidered wreaths of lilies of
+the valley. The hats were of white chip, ornamented with white and pale
+green plumes.
+
+It was small wonder that four young girls, three of them poor, should
+have been awestruck at the thought of appearing in such gowns.
+
+"I shall save mine for my own wedding dress!" exclaimed Eleanor.
+
+"I shall make my debut in mine," insisted Lillian.
+
+"We can't thank you enough," declared Phyllis, a little overcome by so
+much grandeur.
+
+Tom was standing in a far corner of the room.
+
+"I would like to suggest that I be allowed to come into this," he
+demanded firmly.
+
+"You, Tom?" teased Madge. "You're merely the audience."
+
+Tom took four small square boxes out of his pocket. "Don't you be too
+sure, Miss Madge Morton. My future brother-in-law, Judge Robert Hilliard,
+has commissioned me to present his gifts to his bridesmaids. Madge shall
+be the last person to see in these boxes, just for her unkind treatment
+of me."
+
+"All right, Tom," agreed Madge; "I don't think I could stand anything
+more just at this instant."
+
+Nevertheless Madge peeped over Phil's shoulder. Judge Hilliard had
+presented each one of the houseboat girls with an exquisite little pin,
+an enameled model of their houseboat, done in white and blue, the colors
+of the "Merry Maid."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wedding was over. There were still a few guests in the dining room
+saying good-bye to Mrs. Curtis and Tom; but Madeleine and Judge Hilliard
+had gone. The four girls and Miss Jenny Ann found a resting place in the
+beautiful French music room.
+
+Madeleine's wedding presents were in the library, just behind the music
+room.
+
+"It was simply perfect, wasn't it, Miss Jenny Ann?" breathed Lillian, as
+they drew their chairs together for a talk.
+
+"Madeleine must be perfectly happy," sighed Eleanor sentimentally. "Judge
+Hilliard is so good-looking."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" broke in Madge, coming out of a brown study. She was
+sitting in a big carved French chair. "I don't see how Madeleine Curtis
+could have left her mother and this beautiful home for any man in the
+world. I am sure if I had such an own mother I should never leave her,"
+finished the little captain.
+
+"Until some one came along whom you loved better," interposed Miss Jenny
+Ann.
+
+"That could never be, Miss Jenny Ann," declared Madge stoutly, her blue
+eyes wistful. "Why, if my father is alive and I find him, I shall never
+leave him for anybody else."
+
+"What's that noise?" demanded Phyllis sharply.
+
+It was after six o'clock and the Curtis home was brilliantly lighted. The
+window blinds were all closed. But there was a curious rapping and
+scratching at one of the windows that opened into a small side yard.
+
+"It may be one of the servants," suggested Miss Jenny Ann, listening
+intently.
+
+"It can't be," rejoined Madge. "No one of them would make such a strange
+noise."
+
+"I think I had better call Tom," breathed Eleanor faintly. "It must be a
+burglar trying to steal Madeleine's wedding gifts."
+
+Madge shook her head. "Wait, please," she whispered. She ran to the
+window. There was the faint scratching noise again! Madge lifted the
+shade quickly. Perched on the window sill was the oddest figure that ever
+stepped out of the pages of a fairy book. It was impossible to see just
+what it was, yet it looked like a little girl. One hand clung to the
+window facing, a small nose pressed against the pane.
+
+"Why, it's a child!" exclaimed Miss Jenny Ann in tones of relief. "Open
+the window and let her come in."
+
+Madge flung open the window. Light as a thistledown, the unexpected
+little visitor landed in the center of the room.
+
+Madge and Eleanor had completely forgotten the elfin child they had met
+in the slums of New York City; but now she appeared among them just as
+mysteriously as though she were the fairy she pretended to be.
+
+She wore a small red coat that was half a dozen sizes too tiny for her.
+Her skirt was patched with odds and ends of bright flowered materials. On
+her head perched a cap, a scarlet flower, cut from an odd scrap of old
+wall paper. In her hands Tania clasped a ridiculous bundle, done up in a
+dirty handkerchief.
+
+"You strange little witch!" exclaimed Madge. "However did you find your
+way here? Be very still and good until the lovely lady who owns this
+house sees you, then I wouldn't be at all surprised if she gave you some
+cake and ice cream before she sends you away."
+
+Tania sat down in the corner still as a mouse. Her thin knees were
+hunched close together. She held her poor bundle tightly. Her big black
+eyes grew larger and darker with wonder as she had her first glimpse of a
+fairyland, outside her own imagination, in the beautiful room and the
+group of lovely girls who occupied it.
+
+Mrs. Curtis came in a minute later, followed by a man who had been one of
+the guests at the wedding. Madge, Eleanor, and Tania recognized him
+instantly. He was the young man who had protected Tania from the blows of
+the brutal woman the afternoon before, but Tania did not seem pleased to
+see him. Her face flushed hotly, her lips quivered, though she made no
+sound.
+
+Mrs. Curtis smiled quizzically. Madge could see that there were tears
+behind her smiles. "Who is our latest guest, Madge?" she asked, gazing
+kindly at the odd little person.
+
+Tania rose gravely from her place on the floor. "I am a fairy who has
+been under the spell of a wicked witch," she asserted with solemnity,
+"but now the spell is broken and I've run away from her. I shan't go back
+ever any more."
+
+Mrs. Curtis's young man guest took the child firmly by the shoulders.
+
+"What do you mean by coming here to trouble these young ladies?" he
+demanded sternly. "I thought I recognized your friends, Mrs. Curtis. They
+saved this child yesterday from a punishment she probably well deserved.
+She is one of the children in our slum neighborhood that we have not been
+able to reach. I will take her back to her home with me at once."
+
+The child's head was high in the air. She caught her breath. Her eyes had
+a queer, eerie look in them. "You can't take me back now," she insisted.
+"The spell is broken. I shall never see old Sal again."
+
+Madge put her arm about the small witch girl. "Let her stay here just
+to-night, Mrs. Curtis, please," begged Madge earnestly. "I wish to find
+out something about her. I will look after her and see that she does not
+do any harm."
+
+Quite seriously and gently Tania knelt on one knee and kissed Mrs.
+Curtis's hand. "Let me stay. I shall be on my way again in the morning,"
+she pleaded, "but I am a little afraid of the night."
+
+"My dear child," said Mrs. Curtis, gently drawing the waif to her side,
+"you are far too little to be running away from home. You may stay here
+to-night, then to-morrow we will see what we can do for you. I won't
+trouble you with her to-night, Philip," she added, turning to her guest.
+
+"It will be no trouble," returned Philip Holt blandly. "She lives less
+than an hour's ride from here. Her foster mother will be greatly worried
+at her absence."
+
+Mrs. Curtis looked hesitatingly at Tania, who had been listening with
+alert ears. The child's black eyes took on a look of lively terror.
+"Please, please let me stay," she begged, clasping her thin little hands
+in anxious appeal.
+
+"Won't you let Tania stay here to-night, Mrs. Curtis?" asked Madge for
+the second time. "I am sorry to disagree with Mr. Holt, but I do not
+believe that poor little Tania is either lawless or incorrigible. The
+woman who claims her is the most cruel, brutal-looking person I ever saw.
+I am sure she is not Tania's mother. Let me keep her here to-night, and
+to-morrow I will inquire into her case."
+
+"Very well, Madge," said Mrs. Curtis reluctantly. She glanced toward
+Philip Holt. His eyes, however, were fixed upon Madge with an expression
+of disapproval and dislike. For the first time it occurred to Mrs. Curtis
+that Philip Holt might be very disagreeable if thwarted. She immediately
+dismissed the thought as unworthy when the young man said smoothly: "I
+shall be only too glad to have Miss Morton investigate the child's
+record. I am sorry that my word has not been sufficient to convince
+her."
+
+Madge made no reply to this thrust. Then an awkward silence ensued. Mrs.
+Curtis looked annoyed, Tania triumphant, Madge belligerent, and the other
+girls sympathetic. Making a strong effort, Philip Holt controlled his
+anger and, extending his hand to Mrs. Curtis, said: "Pray, pardon my
+interference. I was prompted to speak merely in your interest. I trust I
+shall see you again in the near future. Good night." He bowed coldly to
+the young women and took his departure.
+
+"What a disagreeable----" Madge stopped abruptly. Her face flushed. "I
+beg your pardon, Mrs. Curtis," she said contritely. "I shouldn't have
+spoken my mind aloud."
+
+"I forgive you, my dear," there was a slight tone of constraint in Mrs.
+Curtis's voice, "but I am sure if you knew Mr. Holt as I do you would
+have an entirely different opinion of him."
+
+"Perhaps I should," returned Madge politely, but in her heart she knew
+that she and Philip Holt were destined not to be friends, but bitter
+enemies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+TANIA, A PROBLEM
+
+
+"Don't you think it would be a splendid plan for Tania?" asked Madge
+eagerly. "Miss Jenny Ann and the girls are willing she should come to us.
+Tania is such a fascinating little person, with her dreams and her
+pretences, that she is the best kind of company. Besides, I am awfully
+sorry for her."
+
+Mrs. Curtis and Madge were seated in the latter's bedroom indulging in
+one of their old-time confidential talks.
+
+"Tania would be a great deal of care for you, Madge," argued Mrs. Curtis.
+"She is worrying my maids almost distracted with her foolishness. Last
+night she wrapped herself in a sheet and frightened poor Norah almost to
+death by dancing in the moonlight. She explained to Norah that she was
+pretending that she was a moonflower swaying in the wind. I wonder where
+the child got such odd fancies and bits of information? She has never
+seen a moonflower in her life." Mrs. Curtis laughed and frowned at the
+same time. "Poor little daughter of the tenements! She is indeed a
+problem."
+
+"Shall I tell you all I have been able to find out about Tania?" asked
+Madge. "Her history is quite like a story-book tale. I think her father
+and mother were actors, but the father died when Tania was only a little
+baby. That is why, I suppose, they called the child by such an absurd
+name as 'Titania.' I looked it up and it comes from Shakespeare's play of
+'Midsummer Night's Dream.' I think perhaps her mother was just a dancer,
+or had only a small part in the plays in which she appeared, for they
+never had any money. Tania has lived in a tenement always. The mother
+used to take care of her baby when she could, and then leave her to the
+neighbors. But the mother must have been unusual, too, for she taught
+Tania all sorts of poetry and music when Tania was only a tiny child.
+Indeed, Tania knows a great deal more about literature than I do now,"
+confessed Madge honestly. "It isn't so strange, after all, that Tania
+pretends. Why, she and her mother used to play at pretending together.
+When they sat down to their dinner they used to rub their old lamp and
+play that it was Aladdin's wonderful lamp, and that their poor table was
+spread with a wonderful feast, instead of just bread and cheese. They
+tried to make light of their poverty."
+
+Mrs. Curtis's eyes were full of tears. She could understand better than
+Madge the scene the young girl pictured.
+
+"Tania was eight years old when her mother died," finished Madge
+pensively. "Since then poor Tania has had such a dreadful time, living
+with that wretched old Sal, who has made a regular slavey of her, and she
+just had to go on with her pretending in order to be able to bear her
+life at all."
+
+Madge and Mrs. Curtis were both silent for a moment. The bright June
+sunshine flooded the room, offering a sharp contrast to Tania's sad
+little story.
+
+"You see why I wish to take her on the houseboat," pleaded Madge. "It
+seems so wonderful that we are going to Cape May and will be on the
+really seashore, near you and Tom, that each one of us feels the desire
+to do something for somebody just to show how happy we are. Miss Jenny
+Ann says we may take Tania, if you think it wouldn't be unwise."
+
+"She ought to go to school, Madge," argued Mrs. Curtis half-heartedly.
+"Tania does not know any of the things she should. Philip Holt, who does
+so much good work among the poor in Tania's tenement district, says that
+the child is most unreliable and does not tell the truth."
+
+Madge wrinkled her nose with the familiar expression she wore when
+annoyed. Her investigations had proved Philip Holt a liar, but she
+refrained from saying so.
+
+"You don't like Philip, do you?" continued Mrs. Curtis. "It isn't fair to
+have prejudices without reason. Mr. Holt is a fine young man and does
+splendid work among the poor. Madeleine and I have entrusted him with the
+most of the money we have given to charity. I am sorry that you girls
+don't like him, because he is coming to visit me at Cape May this
+summer."
+
+Madge dutifully stifled her vague feeling of regret. "Of course, we will
+try to like him, if he is your friend," she replied loyally. "It was only
+that we thought Mr. Holt had a terribly superior manner for such a young
+man, and looked too 'goody-goody'! But you have not answered me yet about
+Tania. Do let us have Tania. I'll teach her lots of things this summer,
+and it won't be so hard for her when she goes to school in the fall. She
+is pretty good with me."
+
+"Very well," consented Mrs. Curtis reluctantly, "for this summer only.
+The child will get you into difficulties, but I suppose they won't be
+serious. What is Madge Morton going to do next fall? Is she going to
+college with Phil, or is she coming to be my daughter?"
+
+Madge lowered her red-brown head. "I don't know, dear," she faltered.
+"You know I have said all along to Uncle and Aunt that, just as soon as I
+was grown up, I was going to start out to find my father. I shall be
+nineteen next winter. It surely is time for me to begin."
+
+"But, Madge, dear, you can't find your father unless you know where to
+look for him. The world is a very large place! I am sorry"--Mrs. Curtis
+smoothed Madge's soft hair tenderly--"but I agree with your uncle and
+aunt; your father must be dead. Were he alive he would surely have tried
+to find his little daughter long before this. Your uncle and aunt have
+never heard from or of him during all these years."
+
+"I don't feel sure that he is dead," returned Madge thoughtfully. "You
+see, my father disappeared after his court-martial in the Navy. He never
+dreamed that some day his superior officer would confess his own guilt
+and declare Father innocent. I can't, I won't, believe he is dead.
+Somewhere in this world he lives and some day I shall find him, I am sure
+of it. Phil, Lillian and Eleanor have all pledged themselves to my cause,
+too," she added, smiling faintly.
+
+"I'll do all that I can to help you, Madge. Just have a good time this
+summer, and in the autumn, perhaps, there may be some information for you
+to work on. What is that dreadful noise? I never heard anything like it
+in my house before!" exclaimed Mrs. Curtis.
+
+Madge sprang to her feet. There was the sound of a heavy fall in the next
+room, a scream, then a discreet knock on Madge's door.
+
+"Come!" commanded Mrs. Curtis.
+
+The door opened and the butler appeared in the doorway, his solemn, red
+face redder and more solemn than usual.
+
+"Please, it's that child again," he said. "While the young ladies was out
+in the automobile with Mr. Tom, she went in their room, emptied out one
+of their trunks and shut herself inside. She said she was 'Hope' and the
+trunk was 'Pandory's Box,' or some such crazy foolishness. She meant to
+jump out when the young ladies came back, but Norah went into the room
+with some clean towels, and when the little one bobs her head out of that
+box, just like a black witch, poor Norah is scared out of her wits and
+drops on the floor all of a heap. If that child doesn't go away from here
+soon, Ma'am, I don't know how we can ever bear it."
+
+"That will do, Richards," answered Mrs. Curtis coldly. But Madge could
+see that she was dreadfully vexed at Tania's latest naughtiness.
+
+The little captain gave Mrs. Curtis a penitent hug. "It is all my fault,
+dear. I should never have brought the little witch here," she murmured.
+"I'll go and make it all right with Norah and see that Tania does no more
+mischief--for a while, at least."
+
+Mrs. Curtis looked somewhat mollified, nevertheless, she was far from
+pleased, and Madge's championship of little Tania was to cause the little
+captain more than one unhappy hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A MISCHIEVOUS MERMAID
+
+
+There was a splash over the side of a boat, then another, one more, and a
+fourth. The water rippled and broke away into smooth curves. Down a long
+streak of moonlight four dark objects floated above the surface of the
+waves. For a few seconds there was not a sound, not even a shout, to show
+that the mermaids were at play.
+
+Two dark heads kept in advance of the others.
+
+"Madge," warned a voice, "we must not go too far out. Remember, we
+promised Jenny Ann. My, but isn't this water glorious! I feel as though I
+could swim on forever."
+
+A graceful figure turned over and the moonlight shone full on a happy
+face. The two swimmers moved along more slowly.
+
+"Nellie, Lillian!" Madge called back, "are you all right? Do you wish to
+go on farther?"
+
+Phil and Madge floated quietly until their two friends caught up with
+them.
+
+"I feel as though I could go on all night at this rate," declared Lillian
+Seldon. Eleanor put her hand out. "May I float along with you a little,
+Madge?" she asked. "I am tired. How wide and empty the ocean looks
+to-night! We must not get out of sight of the lights of the 'Merry
+Maid'."
+
+"There is no danger!" scoffed Madge.
+
+"Look out!" cried Phil Alden sharply. She was swimming ahead. She saw
+first the sails of a small yacht making across the bay with all speed to
+the line of the shore that the girls had just quitted.
+
+"Let's follow the boat back home," suggested Madge. "We can keep far
+enough away for them not to see us. It will be rather good fun if they
+take us for porpoises or mermaids, or any other queer sea creature."
+
+"Don't run into that Noah's ark that we saw anchored in the creek this
+morning, Roy," came a shrill voice from the deck of the yacht. "I saw
+half a dozen women going aboard her this afternoon laden with boxes and
+trunks--everything but the parrot and the monkey. It looked as though
+they meant to spend the summer aboard her."
+
+"Perhaps they do, Mabel," a man's voice answered. "The 'Noah's Ark' is a
+houseboat. It looked very tiny for so many people, but I thought it was
+rather pretty."
+
+"Well, we have girls enough at Cape May this summer--about six to every
+man," argued Mabel crossly. "I vote that we give these new persons the
+cold shoulder. Nobody knows who they are, nor where they come from. It is
+bad enough to have to associate with tiresome hotel visitors, but I shall
+draw the line at these water-rats, and I hope you will do the same."
+
+"She means us," gasped Eleanor. "What a perfectly horrid girl!"
+
+The high, sharp voice on the yacht was distinctly audible over the water.
+The boat had slowed down as it drew nearer to the shore.
+
+"Swim along with Phil, Nellie," proposed Madge. "I am going to have some
+fun with those young persons. I don't care if I _am_ nearly grown-up; I
+am not going to miss a lark when there's a chance. I have that rubber
+ball that Phil and I brought out to play with in the water. Watch me
+throw it on their yacht. They'll think it's a bomb, or a meteor, if I can
+throw straight enough. I am going to settle with them this very minute
+for the disagreeable things they just said about us and our pretty 'Merry
+Maid.'"
+
+"Don't do it, Madge!" expostulated Phil; but she was too late; Madge had
+dived and was swimming along almost completely under the water. She swam
+in the darkness cast by the shadow of the boat as it passed within a few
+yards of them.
+
+Like a flash she lifted her great rubber ball. She had better luck than
+she deserved. The ball came out of nowhere and landed in the center of
+the group of three young people on the yacht. It fell first on the deck,
+and then bounced into the lap of the offending Mabel.
+
+It was hard work for the waiting girls not to laugh aloud as naughty
+Madge came slowly back to them.
+
+A wild shriek went up from on board the yacht. "Oh, dear, what was that?"
+one girl asked faintly, when the first cries of alarm had died away.
+
+"Where is it? What was it?" growled a masculine voice. "Are you really
+hurt, Mabel? You are making so much fuss that I can't tell."
+
+Mabel had dropped back in a chair. She was white with fear and trembling
+violently.
+
+"It is in my lap," she moaned. "It may explode any moment--do take it
+away!"
+
+The owner of the yacht, Roy Dennis, turned a small electric flashlight
+full on his two girl guests. There, in Mabel's lap, was surely a round,
+globular-shaped object that had either dropped from the sky or had been
+thrown at them by an unknown hand. Roy had really no desire to pick it up
+without seeing it more clearly.
+
+The other girl was less timid. She reached over and took hold of Madge's
+ball. Then she laughed aloud. Oddly enough, her laugh was repeated out on
+the water.
+
+"Why, it's only a rubber ball!" she asserted. Ethel Swann, who was one of
+the old-time cottagers at Cape May, ran to the side of the boat. "See!"
+she exclaimed, "over there are some boys swimming. I suppose they threw
+the ball on board just to frighten us. They certainly were successful."
+She hurled Madge's ball back over the water, but Roy Dennis's small yacht
+had gone some distance from the group of mischievous mermaids and he did
+not turn back. "If I find out who did that trick, I surely will get even
+with them," muttered Roy. "I don't like to be made a fool of."
+
+"Don't tell Jenny Ann, please, girls," begged Madge, as the four girls
+clambered aboard the "Merry Maid." "It was a very silly trick that I
+played. I should hate to have the cottagers at the Cape hear of it. I
+don't suppose I shall ever grow up."
+
+"Girls, whatever made you stay in the water so long?" demanded Miss Jenny
+Ann, coming into the girls' stateroom with a big pitcher of hot chocolate
+and a plate of cakes. "I have been uneasy about you. You have been in the
+water for half an hour. That's too long for a first swim. Poor Tania is
+fast asleep. The child is utterly worn out with so much excitement. Think
+of never having been out of a crowded city in her life, and then seeing
+this wonderful Cape May! Tania wanted to stay up to wish you good night.
+I left her staring out of the cabin window at the stars when I went into
+our kitchen to make the chocolate. When I came back she was asleep."
+
+"Dear Jenny Ann," said Madge penitently, pulling their chaperon down on
+the berth beside her, while Lillian poured the chocolate, "it was my
+fault we were late. The bad things are always my fault. But we are going
+to have a perfectly glorious time this summer, aren't we? Just think,
+next year Phil and I shall be nineteen and nearly old ladies."
+
+"I wonder if anything special is going to happen to us this holiday?"
+pondered Phil, crunching away on her third cake.
+
+"Something special always does happen to us," declared Lillian. "Let's go
+to bed now, because, if we are going to row up the bay in the morning to
+explore the shore, we shall have to get up early to put the 'Merry Maid'
+in order. We must be regular old Cape May inhabitants by the time that
+Mrs. Curtis and Tom arrive."
+
+Next morning bad news came to the crew of the little houseboat. Mrs.
+Curtis had been called to Chicago by the illness of her brother, and Tom
+had gone with her. They did not know how soon they would be able to come
+on to Cape May; but within a very few days Philip Holt, the goody-goody
+young man who was one of Mrs. Curtis's special favorites, would come on
+to Cape May, and Mrs. Curtis hoped that the girls would see that he had a
+good time.
+
+Neither Madge, Phil, Lillian nor Eleanor felt particularly pleased at
+this information. But Tania, who was the only one of the party that knew
+the young man well, burst unexpectedly into a flood of tears, the cause
+of which she obstinately refused to explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAPTAIN JULES, DEEP SEA DIVER
+
+
+The "Water Witch" rocked lazily on the breast of the waves, awaiting the
+coming of the four girls, who had planned to row up the bay on a voyage
+of discovery. They were not much interested in staying about among the
+Cape May cottagers, after the conversation which they had innocently
+overheard from the deck of the launch the night before. Of course, if
+Mrs. Curtis and Tom had come on to Cape May at once to occupy their
+cottage, as they had expected to do, all would have been well. The four
+young women and their chaperon would have been immediately introduced to
+the society of the Cape. However, the girls were not repining at their
+lack of society. They had each other; there was the old town of Cape May
+to be explored with the great ocean on one side and Delaware Bay on the
+other.
+
+"Do be careful, children," called Miss Jenny Ann warningly as the girls
+arranged themselves for a row in their skiff. "In all our experience on
+the water I never saw so many yachts and pleasure boats as there are on
+these waters. If you don't keep a sharp lookout one of the larger boats
+may run into you. Don't get into trouble."
+
+"We are going away from trouble, Miss Jenny Ann," protested Phil. "There
+is a yacht club on the sound, but we are going to row up the bay past the
+shoals and get as far from civilization as possible."
+
+Madge stood up in the skiff and waved her hand to their chaperon. The
+girls looked like a small detachment of feminine naval cadets in their
+nautical uniforms. Each one of them wore a dark blue serge skirt of ankle
+length and a middy blouse with a blue sailor collar. They were without
+hats, as they hoped to get a coating of seashore tan without wasting any
+time.
+
+"I shall expect you home by noon," were Miss Jenny Ann's final words as
+the "Water Witch" danced away from the houseboat.
+
+"Aye, aye, Skipper!" the girls called back in chorus. "Shall we bring
+back lobsters or clams for luncheon, if we can find them?"
+
+"_Clams!_" hallooed Miss Jenny Ann through her hands. "I am dreadfully
+afraid of live lobsters." Then the houseboat chaperon retired to write a
+letter to an artist, a Mr. Theodore Brown, whose acquaintance she had
+made during the first of the houseboat holidays. He had suggested that he
+would like to come to Cape May some time later in the summer if any of
+his houseboat friends would be pleased to see him, and she was writing to
+tell him just how greatly pleased they would be.
+
+The "Merry Maid" had found a quiet anchorage in one of the smaller inlets
+of the Delaware Bay, not far from the town of Cape May. The larger number
+of the summer cottages were farther away on the tiny islands near the
+sound and along the ocean front.
+
+The "Water Witch" sped gayly over the blue waters of the bay in the
+brilliant late June sunshine. Madge and Phil, as usual, were at the oars.
+Tania crouched quietly at Lillian's feet in the stern of the skiff.
+Eleanor sat in the prow.
+
+"What do you think of it all, Tania?" Madge asked the little adopted
+houseboat daughter. Tania had been very silent since their arrival at the
+seashore. If she were impressed at the wonderful and beautiful things she
+had seen since she left New York City, she had, so far, said nothing.
+
+Her large black eyes blinked in the dazzling light. She was looking
+straight up toward the sky in a curious, absorbed fashion. "I was trying
+to make up my mind, Madge, if this place was as beautiful as my kingdom
+in Fairyland," answered Tania seriously, "and I believe it is."
+
+"Have you a kingdom in Fairyland, little Tania?" inquired Phil gently.
+She did not understand the child's odd fancies, as Madge did.
+
+Tania nodded her head quietly. "Of course I have," she returned simply.
+"Hasn't every one a Fairyland, where things are just as they should be,
+beautiful and good and kind? I am the queen of my kingdom."
+
+Phil looked puzzled, but Madge only laughed. "Don't mind Tania, Phil. She
+is going to be a very sensible little houseboat girl before our holiday
+is over. Besides, I understand her. She only says some of the things I
+used to think when I was a tiny child. But I do wish the people on the
+boats would not stare at us so; there is nothing very wonderful in our
+appearance."
+
+The girls were trying to guide their rowboat among the other larger craft
+that were afloat on the bay. They wished to get into the more remote
+waters. In the meantime it was embarrassing to have smartly dressed women
+and girls put up their lorgnettes and opera glasses to gaze at the girls
+as the latter rowed by.
+
+"Can there be anything the matter with us?" asked Phil solicitously. "I
+never saw anything like this fire of inquisitive stares."
+
+"Of course not, Phil," answered Lillian sensibly. "It is only because we
+are strangers at Cape May, and most of the people whom we see about come
+here each year. Then we are the only persons who live in a Noah's ark, as
+those pleasant people on the yacht called our pretty 'Merry Maid' last
+night. Don't worry. Have you thought how odd it is that we won't even
+know them if we should be introduced to them later? We did not see either
+them or their boat very plainly last night; we only overheard them
+talking."
+
+"But I'll know the voice of that woman who screamed," replied Madge
+rather grimly. "I just dare her to shriek again without my recognizing
+her dulcet tones."
+
+The girls were now drawing away from the crowded end of the bay. They
+kept along fairly close to the shore. There was an occasional house near
+the water, but these dwellings were farther and farther apart. Finally
+the girls rowed for half a mile without seeing any residence save an
+occasional fisherman's hut. They hoped to reach some place where they
+could catch at least a glimpse of the wonderful cedar woods that flourish
+farther up the coast of the bay.
+
+Suddenly Lillian sang out: "Look, girls, there is the dearest little
+house! It is almost in the water. It rivals our houseboat, it is so like
+a ship. Isn't it too cunning for anything!"
+
+Madge and Phyllis rested on their oars. The girls stared curiously.
+
+They saw a house built of shingles that had turned a soft gray which
+exactly resembled an old three-masted schooner. It had a tiny porch in
+front, but the first roof ended in a point, the second rose higher, like
+a larger sail, and the third, which must have covered the kitchen, was
+about the height of the first.
+
+"See, Tania, I can make the funny house by putting my fingers together,"
+laughed Lillian. "My thumbs are the first roof, my three fingers the
+second, and my little fingers the last."
+
+The girls rowed nearer the odd cottage. The place was deserted; at least
+they saw no one about. Over the front door of the house hung a trim
+little sign inscribed, "The Anchorage."
+
+"Dear me, here is a boathouse, and we've a houseboat!" exclaimed Eleanor.
+"I wish we dared go ashore and knock at the door, to ask some one to show
+us over it."
+
+"I don't think we had better try it, Eleanor," remonstrated Phil. "The
+house probably belongs to some grouchy old sea captain who has built it
+to get away from people."
+
+At this moment a man at least six feet tall, wearing old yellow
+tarpaulins, came around the side of the house of the three sails with a
+large basket on each arm. He sat down on a rock in front of the house and
+began lifting mussel and oyster shells out of one of his baskets. He
+would peer at them earnestly before throwing them over to one side. He
+was a giant of a man, past middle age. His face was so weather-beaten
+that his skin was like leather. His eyes were blue as only a sailor's
+eyes can be. On one of the man's shoulders perched a wizened little
+monkey that every now and then tugged at its master's grizzled hair or
+chattered in his ear.
+
+[Illustration: "Good Morning" Shouted Madge.]
+
+The man did not observe the girls in the rowboat, although they were only
+a few yards away.
+
+"Good morning," sang out Madge cheerfully, forgetting the vow of silence
+which the girls had made that morning against the Cape Mayites. But then,
+the girls had never dreamed of seeing such a fascinating seafaring old
+mariner. Their vow had been taken against the society people.
+
+The sailor, however, did not return Madge's friendly salutation; he went
+on examining his oyster and mussel shells.
+
+Madge looked crestfallen. The old sailor had such a splendid, strong
+face. He did not seem to be the kind of man who would fail to return a
+friendly good morning greeting.
+
+"I don't think he heard you, Madge. Let's all halloo together," proposed
+Lillian.
+
+"Good morning!" shouted five young voices in a mischievous chorus.
+
+The seaman lifted his big head. His smile came slowly, wrinkling his face
+into heavy creases. "Good morning, mates," he called heartily. "Coming
+ashore?"
+
+"Oh, may we?" cried Madge in return. "We should _dearly_ love to!"
+
+The five girls needed no further invitation. They piled out of the "Water
+Witch" before their host could come near enough to assist them.
+
+The seaman did not invite them into the house. The girls took their seats
+on the big rock near the water. Madge was farthest away, but promptly the
+monkey leaped from its master's shoulder and planted itself in Madge's
+hair, pulling the strands violently while he chattered angrily.
+
+"You horrid little thing!" she cried; "you hurt. I wonder if you hate red
+hair. Is that the reason you are trying to pull mine out? Please,
+somebody, take this playful beast away."
+
+The old sea captain, as the girls guessed him to be, promptly came to
+Madge's rescue and removed the angry monkey.
+
+"You must forgive my pet," he remarked kindly. "My little Madge is
+jealous. She doesn't like strangers and we don't often have young lady
+visitors."
+
+"Madge!" exclaimed the little captain, smiling as she tried to re-arrange
+her hair. "What a funny name for a monkey. Why, that is my name!"
+
+After a few advances the monkey became very friendly with the other
+girls, but she would have nothing to do with Madge. She would fly into a
+perfect tempest of rage whenever Madge approached her or tried to talk to
+her. The monkey even deserted her master to perch in Tania's arms. The
+animal put its little, scrawny arms about the queer child's neck, and
+there was almost the same elfish, wistful look in both pairs of dark
+eyes.
+
+"Do you catch many fish in these waters?" inquired Eleanor, whose
+housewifely soul was interested in the big basket of lobsters that she
+saw crawling about, writhing and twisting as though they were in agony.
+
+"Almost every kind that lives in temperate waters," answered the sailor,
+"but there is nothing like the variety one finds in the tropics."
+
+"Were you once a sea captain?" asked Lillian curiously.
+
+The man shook his head. "I'm not a captain in the United States service,"
+he returned. "I am called captain in these parts, 'Captain Jules,' but I
+have only commanded a freight schooner."
+
+"I know I have no right to be so curious," interposed Madge, "but I
+dearly love everything about the sea. Were you ever a deep sea diver?
+Somehow you look like one."
+
+"I was a pearl-fisher for many years," the seaman answered as calmly as
+though diving for pearls was one of the most ordinary trades in the
+world. But his eyes twinkled as he heard Madge's gasp of admiration and
+caught the expression on the faces of the other girls.
+
+"You were looking for pearls in those oysters and mussel shells when our
+boat came along, weren't you?" divined Madge, regarding him with large
+eyes.
+
+The man nodded a smiling answer.
+
+"Yes, but I didn't expect to find any pearls," he answered. "It is
+strange how a man's old occupation will cling to him, even after he has
+long ago given it up. There are very few pearls to be found now in the
+Delaware Bay or the waters around here."
+
+Captain Jules was gravely removing lobsters from his basket for Tania's
+entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him,
+breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one
+of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one
+would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up
+on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fall quietly asleep, as
+though it were nodding in a chair.
+
+"I never saw anything so queer in my life," chuckled Phil. "You hypnotize
+the lobsters, don't you?"
+
+Captain Jules shook his shaggy head. He was proud of the appreciation his
+accomplishment had excited. "No; I don't hypnotize them," he explained.
+"Anybody can make old Father Lobster fall asleep if he only rubs him in
+the right place. You are not going, are you?" for the girls had risen to
+depart.
+
+"I am afraid we must," said Madge; "we promised to get back to our
+houseboat by noon. If you come down to Cape May, won't you please come to
+see us? Our houseboat is a rival to your boathouse."
+
+"You are very kind," answered the old captain, shaking his head, "but I
+don't do much visiting. I thank you just the same. Let me fix you up a
+basket of fish. Afraid of the lobsters, aren't you, little girl?" he
+said, smiling at Tania.
+
+The old sailor followed his visitors to help them aboard their rowboat.
+He walked beside Madge, keeping a careful watch on his monkey, which
+still chattered and gesticulated, showing her hatred of the little
+captain.
+
+The girls realized that this man had the manners of a gentleman, although
+he looked as rough and uncouth as a common sailor. There was a kind of
+nobility about him, as of a man who has lived and fought with the big
+things of the earth.
+
+Madge looked at him beseechingly just before they arrived at their skiff.
+Now, when Madge desired anything very greatly she was hard to resist. Her
+blue eyes wore their most bewitching expression. "Please," she faltered,
+"I want you to do me a favor. I know I have no right to ask it, but,
+but----"
+
+"What is it?" inquired Captain Jules, smiling.
+
+"Have you your diving suit?" asked Madge. "If you have, and you would
+show it to me some day, I would be too happy for words." Madge blushed at
+her own temerity.
+
+The captain shook his head. There was little encouragement in his
+expression. "Maybe, some day," he replied vaguely; "but I have had the
+suit put away for some time. Who knows when I will go down into the sea
+again? Be careful in that small skiff," he warned the girls. "There are
+so many launches about on these waters, run by men and women that don't
+know the very first principles of running a boat, that a small craft like
+yours may easily drift into danger. You must look lively."
+
+The girls waved their good-byes as Madge and Phil pulled away. Madge
+noticed that the old sailor stared curiously at her, and every now and
+then he shook his head and frowned. Madge supposed it was because she had
+been so bold as to ask a favor of a perfect stranger. Yet, if she could
+only see Captain Jules again and he might be persuaded to show her his
+diving suit and to tell her something of the strange business of
+pearl-fishing, she couldn't be really sorry for her impudence. This
+accidental meeting with an old sailor inspired Madge afresh with her love
+of the sea and the mystery of it. She could not get the man out of her
+mind, nor her own desire to see him soon again and to ask him more
+questions.
+
+As for Captain Jules, when the girls had fairly gone he lighted his pipe
+and strode along the line of the shore. "It's a funny thing, Madge," he
+said, addressing the monkey, "but when a man gets an idea in his head,
+everything and everybody he sees seems to start the same old idea
+a-going. I wish I had asked her to tell me her surname. I wonder if she
+is the real Madge?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WRECK OF THE "WATER WITCH"
+
+
+The girls began their row to the "Merry Maid" with all speed. They had
+had such an interesting morning that they did not realize how the time
+had flown. They did not know the exact hour now, but they feared it would
+be after twelve before they could rejoin Miss Jenny Ann. The sun was so
+nearly overhead and shining so brilliantly that the effect was almost
+dazzling. Madge and Phil did not try to see any distance ahead in their
+course. Lillian, however, was on the lookout. There were several inlets
+opening into the larger water-way down which the girls were rowing. Boats
+were likely to come unexpectedly out of these inlets, and the girls
+should have been far more watchful than they were.
+
+"It's too bad about Mrs. Curtis and Tom not coming on to Cape May as soon
+as we expected them, isn't it?" remarked Phil, resting for half a moment
+from the strain of the steady pulling at her oars. "I hope they will
+arrive soon, before we have the responsibility of entertaining Mrs.
+Curtis's friend, Philip Holt. It won't be much fun to have a strange man
+following us about everywhere, even if he should turn out to be nicer
+than we think he is." Phil was the stroke oar. She was talking over her
+shoulder to Madge, who was paying more attention to her friend's
+conversation than to her rowing.
+
+"Oh, I think Mrs. Curtis and Tom will be along soon," she rejoined. "I
+felt dreadfully when we received the telegram this morning. But now I
+hope Mrs. Curtis's brother will get well in a hurry. Perhaps they will be
+here almost as soon as this Philip. I'll wager you a pound of chocolates,
+Phil, that this goody-goody young man can't swim or row, or do anything
+like an ordinary person. He will just think every single thing we do is
+perfectly dreadful, and will frighten Tania to death with his preaching.
+I know he thinks her fairy stories are lies. He told Mrs. Curtis that
+Tania never spoke the truth." Madge lowered her voice. "I am sure we have
+never caught her in a lie. I suppose this Philip will think my
+exaggerations are as bad as Tania's fairy stories. I hate too literal
+people."
+
+"Dear me, whom are you and Phil discussing, Madge?" inquired Lillian,
+leaning over from her seat in the stern with Tania, to try to catch her
+friends' low-voiced conversation. "If it is that Philip Holt, you need
+not think that he will trouble us very much when he comes to Cape May. He
+is just the kind of person who will trot after all the rich people he
+meets, and waste very little energy on those who have neither money nor
+social position."
+
+Lillian was looking at Madge and Phil as she talked. For the moment she
+forgot to keep a sharp watch about on the water. But a moment since there
+had been no other boats in sight near them. Eleanor was resting in the
+prow with her eyes closed. The sun blazed hotly in her face, she could
+only see a bright light dancing before her eyes.
+
+As Lillian leaned back in her seat in the stern her face took on an
+expression of sudden alarm. At the same moment the four girls heard the
+distinct chug of a motor engine. Cutting down upon them was a pleasure
+yacht run by a gasoline motor. The prow of the yacht was head-on with the
+"Water Witch" and running at full speed. The boat had blown no whistle,
+so the girls had not seen its approach.
+
+"Look ahead!" shouted Lillian.
+
+The young man who was steering the yacht paid no heed to her warning. He
+kept straight ahead, although he distinctly saw the rowboat and its
+passengers.
+
+Madge and Phyllis had no time to call out or to protest. They realized,
+almost instantly, that the motor launch meant to make no effort to slow
+down but to put the full responsibility of getting out of danger on the
+rowers.
+
+The girls had no particular desire to be thrown into the water, nor to
+have their boat cut in two, so they pulled for dear life, with white
+faces and straining throats and arms.
+
+They just missed making their escape by a hair's breadth. The young man
+running the yacht must have believed that the skiff would get safely by
+or else when he found out his mistake it was too late for him to slow
+down. The prow of his yacht ran with full force into the frail side of
+the "Water Witch" near her stern.
+
+The little skiff whirled in the water almost in a semi-circle. By a
+miracle it escaped being completely run down by the launch. Yet a second
+later, before any one of the girls could stir, the water rushed into the
+hole in its side and it sank. Madge and Phyllis had had their oars
+wrenched from their hands. Then they found themselves struggling in the
+water.
+
+A cry rose from the launch as the "Water Witch" and her passengers
+disappeared. But there was no sound from the little rowboat, save the
+gurgle of the water and a shrill scream from Tania as the waves closed
+over her head.
+
+The yacht swept on past, borne perhaps by her own headway.
+
+As Madge went down under the water two thoughts seemed to come to her
+mind in the same second: she must look after Eleanor and Tania. Her
+cousin, Nellie, was not able to swim as well as the other girls. She had
+always been more nervous and timid in the water and was liable to sudden
+cramp. Madge knew that being hurled from a boat in such sudden fashion
+with her clothes on instead of a bathing suit would completely terrify
+Eleanor. She might lose her presence of mind completely and fail to
+strike out when she rose to the surface of the water. As for Tania, Madge
+was aware that she, of course, could not swim a stroke. The little one
+had never been in deep water before in her life.
+
+Madge struggled for breath for a second as she came to the surface of the
+bay again. She had swallowed some salt water as she went down. In the
+next desperate instant she counted three heads above the waves besides
+her own. Phyllis was swimming quietly toward Eleanor. Evidently she had
+entertained Madge's fear. "Make for the 'Water Witch,' Nellie," Madge
+heard Phil say in her calm, cool-headed fashion. "It has overturned and
+come up again and we can hang on to that. Don't be frightened. I am
+coming after you. Try to float if your clothes are too heavy to swim.
+I'll pull you to the boat."
+
+Lillian's golden head reflected the light from the sun's rays as she swam
+along after Phil. But nowhere could Madge see a sign of a little, wild,
+black head with its straight, short locks and frightened black eyes.
+
+She waited for another breathless moment. Why did Tania not rise to the
+surface like the rest of them? Madge was trying to tread water and to
+keep a sharp lookout about her, but her clothes were heavy and kept
+pulling her down; swimming in heavy shoes is an extremely difficult
+business, even for an experienced swimmer. All of a sudden it occurred to
+Madge that Tania might have risen under the overturned rowboat. Then her
+head would have struck against its bottom and she would have gone down
+again without ever having been seen.
+
+There was nothing else to be done. Madge must dive down to see what had
+become of her little friend, yet diving was difficult when she had no
+place from which to dive. Madge knew she must get all the way down to the
+very bottom of the bay to see if by any chance Tania's body could have
+been entangled among the sea weed, or her clothes caught on a rock or
+snag.
+
+Once down, she looked in vain for the little body along the sandy bottom
+of the bay. She espied some rocks covered with shimmering shells and sea
+ferns, but there was no trace of Tania. For the second time she rose to
+the surface of the water. She hoped to see Tania's black head glistening
+among those of her older friends clustered about the overturned boat. She
+had grown very tired and was obliged to shake the water out of her eyes
+before she dared trust herself to look.
+
+Then she saw that Phil had hold of one of Eleanor's hands and with the
+other was clinging to the slippery side of their overturned boat. Eleanor
+was numb with cold and shock. Although her free hand rested on the boat,
+Phil dared not let go of her for fear she would sink.
+
+Phyllis was beginning to feel uneasy about Madge. She had given no
+thought to her during the early part of the accident, she knew Madge to
+be a water witch herself, but when the little captain did not come to the
+skiff with the rest of them Phil's heart grew heavy. What could she do?
+Dare she let go her hold on Eleanor? Strangely enough, in their peril,
+Phyllis had given no thought to the little stranger, Tania.
+
+Phyllis Alden breathed a happy sigh of relief when she saw Madge's curly,
+red-brown head moving along toward them.
+
+"Have you seen Tania?" she called faintly, trying to reserve both her
+breath and her strength.
+
+Then Phil remembered Tania with a rush of remorse and terror. "No, I
+haven't, Madge. What could have become of the child?" she faltered.
+
+Lillian looked out over the water. Surely the launch that had wrecked
+them would have been able by this time to come back to their assistance.
+The boat had stopped, but it had not moved near to them. So far, its crew
+showed no sign of giving them any aid. Lillian could not believe her
+eyes.
+
+"I'd better dive for Tania again," said Madge quietly, without intimating
+to her chums that she was feeling a little tired and less sure of herself
+in the water than usual. She knew they would not allow her to dive.
+
+When she went down for Tania the second time she chose a different place
+to make her descent. She must find the little girl at once.
+
+She was swimming along, not many inches from the bottom of the bay, when
+she caught sight of what seemed to her a large fish floating near some
+rocks. Madge swam toward it slowly. It was Tania's foot, swaying with the
+motion of the water. Caught on a spar, which might have once been part of
+a mast of an old ship, was Tania's dress. On the other side of her was a
+rock, and her body had become wedged between the two objects. It was a
+beautiful place and might have been a cave for a mermaid, but it held the
+little earth-princess in a death-like grasp.
+
+It is possible to be sick with fear and yet to be brave. Madge knew her
+danger. She saw that Tania's dress was caught fast. She would have to tug
+at it valiantly to get it away. First, she pulled desperately at Tania's
+shoe, hoping she could free her body. A suffocating weight had begun to
+press down on her chest. She could hear a roaring and buzzing in her
+ears. She knew enough of the water to realize that she had been too long
+underneath; she should rise to the surface again to get her breath. But
+she dared not wait so long to release Tania. Nor did she know that she
+could find the child again when she returned. She must do her work now.
+
+So Madge pulled more slowly and carefully at Tania's frock, unwinding it
+from the spar that held it. With a few gentle tugs she released it and
+Tania's slender body rose slowly. The child's eyes were closed, her face
+was as still and white as though she were dead. Madge was glad of Tania's
+unconsciousness. She knew that in this lay the one chance of safety for
+herself and the child. If Tania came to consciousness and began to
+struggle the little captain knew that her strength was too far gone for
+her to save either the child or herself. She would not leave her. She
+would have to drown with her.
+
+She caught the little girl by her black hair, and swam out feebly with
+her one free arm. At this moment Tania's black eyes opened wide. She
+realized their awful peril. She was only a child, and the fear of the
+drowning swept over her. She gave a despairing clutch upward, threw both
+her thin arms about Madge's neck and held her in a grasp of steel. For a
+second Madge tried to fight Tania's hands away. Then her strength gave
+out utterly. She realized that the end had come for them both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE OWNER OF THE DISAGREEABLE VOICE
+
+
+It may be that Madge had another second of consciousness. Afterward she
+thought she could recall being caught up by a giant, who unloosed Tania's
+hands from about her throat. Quietly the three of them began to float
+upward with such steadiness, such quietness, that she had that blessed
+sense of security and release from responsibility that a child must feel
+who has fallen asleep in its father's arms.
+
+The first thing that she actually knew was, when she opened her eyes, to
+look into a pair of deep blue, kindly ones that were smiling bravely and
+encouragingly into hers. Near her were her three friends, looking very
+wet and miserable, and one little, dark-eyed elf who was sobbing
+bitterly. Farther away were two strange girls and one red-faced young
+man. Then Madge understood that she had been brought aboard the yacht
+that had run down their rowboat.
+
+The little captain sat up indignantly. "I am quite all right," she said
+haughtily, looking with an unfriendly countenance at their wreckers.
+Then, feeling strangely dizzy, she sank back and with a little sigh
+closed her eyes.
+
+"Don't do that," protested Eleanor tragically. "You must not faint.
+Captain Jules, please don't let her."
+
+The old captain's strong hands took hold of Madge's cold ones. "Pull
+yourself together, my hearty," he whispered. "A girl who can dive down
+into the bottom of the bay as you can shows she has good sea-blood in
+her. She can see the old captain's diving suit any day she likes--own it
+if she has a mind to. Fishing for pearls isn't half so good a trade as
+fishing for a human life. You'll be yourself in a minute. Lucky I
+happened to walk down the beach in the same direction your boat went."
+
+One of the two strange girls came to Madge's side at this moment with a
+cup of strong tea. "_Do_ drink this," she pleaded. "It has taken some
+time to make the water boil. I wish to give some to the other girls, too.
+I am so sorry that we ran into you. You must know that it was an
+accident."
+
+Madge drank the tea obediently, gazing a little less scornfully at the
+girl who was serving her, her face pale with fright and sympathy. The
+other girl stood apart at a little distance with a young man. They were
+both staring at the wet and shivering girls with poorly concealed
+amusement.
+
+"We are awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," said Madge to the
+girl with the tea. She was trying to control her feelings when she caught
+sight of the owner of the small yacht and his friend and her temper got
+the better of her.
+
+"I am sorry," she repeated, "that we are giving _you_ trouble. But,
+really, your motor launch had no right to bear down on our boat without
+blowing its whistle or giving the faintest sign of its approach. It put
+the whole responsibility of getting out of the way on us."
+
+Madge was sitting beside the old captain. Her direct mode of attack
+showed that she was feeling more like herself.
+
+"What the young lady says is true," declared Captain Jules with emphasis.
+"I doubt if you have the faintest legal right to navigate a boat in these
+waters. If I hadn't happened to walk along down the shore of the bay
+after these young ladies left me two of them would have been drowned.
+I'll have to see to it that you keep off this bay if you do any more such
+mischief as you did this morning."
+
+The young man in a handsome yachting suit worthy of an admiral in the
+United States Navy frowned angrily at Madge and her champion.
+
+"I say it wasn't my fault that I ran into your little paper boat," he
+protested angrily. "I gave you plenty of time to get out of my way, but
+you girls pulled so slowly that we did slide into you. Still, if you will
+admit that it was your fault and not mine, I will have your old skiff
+mended, if she isn't too much used up and you can get somebody to tow her
+back to land for you. I can't; I have enough to carry as it is."
+
+The girl standing beside the young man giggled hysterically. Madge
+decided that she had heard her high, shrill notes before. Phyllis,
+Lillian and Eleanor were furiously angry at the young man's retort to
+Madge and Captain Jules, but they bit their lips and said nothing. They
+were on his yacht, although they were enforced passengers; it was better
+not to express their feelings.
+
+But Madge was in a white heat of passion over the young man's boorish
+retort.
+
+"It was not our fault in the least that we were run down," she said in a
+low, evenly pitched voice. "We are not willing to take the least bit of
+the blame. You not only ran into our little boat and sunk her, but you
+did not take the least trouble to come to our aid when you had not the
+faintest knowledge whether any one of us could swim. _Men_ in the part of
+the world where I come from don't do things of that kind. Put your boat
+back and tow our rowboat to land," ordered Madge imperiously. "We
+certainly will not allow you to have it mended. Neither my friends nor I
+wish to accept any kind of recompense from a man who is a _coward_!"
+
+The word was out. Madge had not meant to use it, but somehow it slipped
+off her tongue.
+
+"Steady," she heard the old sailor whisper in her ear. He was gazing at
+her intently, and something in his face calmed the hot tide of her anger.
+"I am sorry I said you were a coward," she added, with one of her quick
+repentances. "I don't think you were very brave, but perhaps something
+may have happened that prevented your coming to our aid."
+
+"Mr. Dennis does not swim very well," the nicer of the two girls
+explained, sitting down beside Madge. She was blushing and biting her
+lips. "Mr. Dennis meant to put back as soon as he could. I am Ethel
+Swann. I received a letter from Mrs. Curtis this morning, who is one of
+my mother's old friends. She wrote that she and her son would be down a
+little later to open their cottage, but she hoped that we would meet you
+girls before she came. I am so sorry that we have met first in such an
+unfortunate fashion."
+
+"Oh, never mind," interrupted Madge impatiently. "If you are Ethel Swann,
+Mrs. Curtis has talked to us about you. We are very glad to know you, I
+am sure."
+
+"These are my friends, Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar," Ethel went on, her
+face flushing. The four girls bowed coldly. Mabel Farrar acknowledged the
+introduction by a stiff nod. The young man took off his cap for the first
+time when Madge introduced Captain Jules.
+
+"Run your boat along the side of the overturned skiff and I'll tie her on
+for you," ordered Captain Jules quietly. "I think I had better go along
+back to land with you."
+
+Roy Dennis, who was a little more frightened at his deed than he cared to
+own, was glad to obey the captain's order.
+
+Just as the girls were landing from the launch Mabel Farrar's foot
+slipped and she gave a shrill scream. Instantly the girls recognized the
+voice which they had heard the night before condemning them to social
+oblivion.
+
+Although Captain Jules had only a short time before positively refused
+the invitation of the girls to come aboard the "Merry Maid" to pay them a
+visit, it was he who handed each girl from the deck of Roy Dennis's boat
+into the arms of their frightened chaperon. Finally he crossed over to
+the deck of the houseboat himself, bearing little Tania in his arms and
+looking in his wet tarpaulins like old King Neptune rising from the
+brine.
+
+Captain Jules was made to stay to luncheon on board the houseboat. There
+was no getting away from the determined young women. In his heart of
+hearts the old sailor had no desire to go. Something inspired him with
+the desire to know more of these charming girls.
+
+When the girls had put on dry clothing they led Captain Jules all over
+the houseboat, showing him each detail of it. He insisted that the "Merry
+Maid" was as trim a little craft as he had ever seen afloat.
+
+After luncheon, at which the captain devoured six of Miss Jenny Ann's
+best cornbread gems, he sat down in a chair on the houseboat deck,
+holding Tania in his arms. He talked most to Phyllis, but he seldom took
+his eyes off Madge's face. Sometimes he frowned at her; now and then he
+smiled. Once or twice Madge found herself blushing and wondering why her
+rescuer looked at her so hard, but she was too interested to care very
+much.
+
+She sat down in her favorite position on a pile of cushions on the deck,
+with her head resting against Miss Jenny Ann's knee and her eyes on the
+water. "Do tell us, Captain Jules," she pleaded, "something about your
+life as a pearl-fisher. You must have had wonderful experiences. We would
+dearly love to hear about them, wouldn't we, girls?"
+
+The girls chorused an enthusiastic "Yes," which included Miss Jenny Ann.
+
+Captain Jules laughed. "Haven't you ever heard that it is dangerous to
+get an old sea dog started on his adventures? You never can tell when he
+will leave off," he teased, stroking Tania's black hair. "But I wouldn't
+be surprised if Tania would like to hear how once I was nearly swallowed
+whole, diving suit and all, by a giant shark. I was hunting for pearls in
+those days off the Philippine Islands. I had been tearing some shells
+from the side of a great rock when, of a sudden, I felt a strange
+presence before I saw anything. I might have known it was time to expect
+trouble, because the little fish that are usually floating about in the
+water had all disappeared. A creepy feeling came over me. I was cold as
+ice inside my diving suit. Then I turned and looked up. Just a few feet
+in front of me was a giant shark that seemed about twenty-five feet long.
+He was an evil monster. The upper part of his body was a dirty, dark
+green and his fins were black. You never saw a diving suit, did you? So
+you don't know that all the body is covered up but the hands. I tucked my
+hands under my breastplate in a hurry. It didn't seem to me that a pearl
+diver would be much good without any hands. Well, the great fish made a
+sweep with its tail, and in a jiffy he and I were face to face. I stood
+still for about a second. I held my breath, my heart pounding like a
+hammer. Nearer and nearer the monster came swimming toward me, with its
+shovel nose pointing directly at the glass that covered my face. I
+couldn't stand it. I threw up my hands. I yelled way down at the bottom
+of the sea with no one to hear me. There was a swirl of water, a cloud of
+mud, and my enemy vanished. He didn't like the noise any better than I
+liked him."
+
+The girls breathed sighs of relief. The captain chuckled. "Oh, a diver is
+not in real danger from a shark," he went on, "his suit protects him. But
+there are plenty of other dangers. Maybe I'll tell you some of them at
+another time. Why, I declare, it is nearly sunset. You don't know it,
+children, but the bottom of the tropic sea has colors in it as beautiful
+as the lights in that sky. The sea-bottom, where the diver is apt to find
+pearl shells, is covered with all sorts of sea growths--sponges twelve
+feet high, coral cups like inverted mushrooms, sea-fans twenty feet
+broad."
+
+As the old diver talked, the girls could see the magic coral wreaths,
+glowing rose color and crimson, the tall ferns and sea flowers that waved
+with the movement of the water as the earth flowers move to the stirring
+of the wind. And there in the land of the mermaids, hidden between
+wonderful shells of mother-of-pearl, lie the jewels that are the purest
+and most beautiful in the world.
+
+Madge's chin was in her hands. She did not hear the old captain get up
+and say good-bye. She was wishing, with all her heart, that she, too,
+might go down to the bottom of the sea to view its treasures.
+
+"Madge," Phil interrupted her reverie, "Captain Jules is going."
+
+Madge put her soft, warm hands into the big man's hard, powerful ones.
+"Good-bye," she said gratefully. "There is something I wish to tell you,
+but I won't until another time."
+
+Miss Jenny Ann stared thoughtfully after the giant figure as Captain
+Jules left the houseboat and strode up the shore in search of a small
+skiff to take him home.
+
+"You girls have made an unusual friend," she said slowly to Madge. "In
+many ways Captain Jules is rough. He may be uneducated in the wisdom of
+schools and books, but he is a great man with a great heart."
+
+Before Madge went to bed that night she wrote Tom Curtis. She told him
+how sorry they all were that he could not come at once to Cape May. She
+also described the day's adventures. She made as light of their accident
+as possible, but she ended her letter by asking Tom if he would not send
+her a book about pearl fishing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE GOODY-GOODY YOUNG MAN
+
+
+"Philip Holt has come, Madge," announced Phyllis Alden a few days later.
+"He is staying at one of the hotels until Mrs. Curtis and Tom arrive to
+open their cottage. He has already been calling on a number of Mrs.
+Curtis's friends here. Now he has condescended to come to see us. Miss
+Jenny Ann says we must invite him to luncheon; so close that book, if you
+please, and come help us to entertain him. I am sure you will be _so_
+pleased to see him."
+
+Madge frowned, but closed her book obediently. "What a bore, Phil! I was
+just reading this fascinating book on pearl-fishing. A few valuable
+pearls have been found in these waters. There was one which was sold to a
+princess for twenty-five hundred dollars. Who knows but the 'Merry Maid'
+may even now be reposing on a bank of pearls! Dear me, here is that
+tiresome Mr. Holt! Of course, we must be nice with him on Mrs. Curtis's
+account. I hope she and Tom will soon come along. Let us take Mr. Holt
+with us to the golf club this afternoon. We promised Ethel Swann to come
+and she won't mind our bringing him."
+
+The girls were not altogether surprised that the young people whom they
+had lately met at Cape May were divided into two sets. The one had taken
+the girls under their protection and seemed to like them immensely. The
+other, headed by Mabel Farrar and Roy Dennis, treated them with cool
+contempt. But the girls felt able to take care of themselves. Not one of
+them even inquired what story Mr. Dennis and Miss Farrar had told about
+their memorable meeting on the water.
+
+The Cape May golf course stretches over miles of beautiful downs and the
+clubhouse is the gathering place for society at this summer resort.
+
+Ethel Swann bore off Lillian and Eleanor to introduce them to some of her
+friends, and the three girls followed the course of two of the players
+over the links.
+
+Philip Holt was plainly impressed by the smartly-dressed women and girls
+whom he saw about him. He was a tall, thin young man with sandy hair and
+he wore spectacles. He insisted that Madge and Phyllis should not forget
+to introduce him as the friend of Mrs. Curtis, who expected him to be her
+guest later on. Indeed, Philip Holt talked so constantly and so
+intimately of Mrs. Curtis that Madge had to stifle a little pang of
+jealousy. She had supposed, when she was in New York City, that Mrs.
+Curtis, who was very generous, only took a friendly interest in Philip
+Holt and his work among the New York poor, but to-day Philip Holt gave
+her to understand that Mrs. Curtis was as kind to him as though he were a
+member of her family. And Madge wondered wickedly to herself whether Tom
+Curtis would be pleased to have him for a brother. She determined to
+interview Tom on the subject as soon as he should return from Chicago.
+
+Later in the afternoon Madge and Phyllis were surprised to see Roy Dennis
+and Mabel Farrar come down the golf clubhouse steps and walk across the
+lawn toward them, smiling with apparent friendliness. Madge's resentful
+expression softened. She did not bear malice, and she felt that she had
+said more to Roy Dennis about his treatment of them than she should have
+done. She, therefore, bowed pleasantly. Phil followed suit. To their
+amazement they were greeted with a frozen stare by the newcomers, who
+walked to where the two girls were standing without paying the least
+attention to the latter. Madge's color rose to the very roots of her
+hair. Phil's black eyes flashed, but she kept them steadily fixed on the
+girl and man.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Holt?" asked Mabel in bland tones, addressing the
+girls' companion. "I believe I am right in calling you Mr. Holt. I have
+heard that you were a friend of Mrs. Curtis and her son. This is my
+friend, Roy Dennis. We are so pleased to meet any of dear Mrs. Curtis's
+_real_ friends. We should like to have you take tea with us."
+
+Philip Holt looked perplexed. He opened his mouth to introduce Madge and
+Phyllis to Miss Farrar, but the girls' expressions told the story.
+
+Miss Farrar and Mr. Dennis had purposely excluded the two girls from the
+conversation.
+
+For the fraction of a second Philip Holt wavered. Mabel Farrar was
+smartly dressed. Roy Dennis looked the rich, idle society man that he
+was. Moneyed friends were always the most useful in Mr. Holt's opinion,
+he therefore turned to Miss Farrar with, "I shall be only too pleased to
+accompany you."
+
+"You'll excuse me," he turned condescendingly to Madge and Phil, "but
+Mrs. Curtis's friends wish me to have tea with them."
+
+Madge smiled at the young man with such frank amusement that he was
+embarrassed. "Oh, yes, we will excuse you," she said lightly. "Please
+don't give another thought to us. Miss Alden and I wish you to consult
+your own pleasure. I am sure that you will find it in drinking tea!" She
+turned away, the picture of calm indifference, although she had a wicked
+twinkle in her eye.
+
+"Well, if that wasn't the rudest behavior all around that I ever saw in
+my life!" burst out Phil indignantly after the disagreeable trio had
+departed. "Mrs. Curtis or no Mrs. Curtis, I don't think we should be
+expected to speak to that ill-bred Mr. Holt again. The idea of his
+marching off with that girl and man after the way they treated us! I
+shall tell Mrs. Curtis just how he behaved as soon as I see her, then she
+won't think him so delightful."
+
+Madge put her arm inside Phil's. "You had better not mention it to Mrs.
+Curtis, Phil. Mrs. Curtis is the dearest person in the world, but she is
+so lovely and so rich that she is used always to having her own way. She
+thinks that we girls are prejudiced against this Mr. Holt because he said
+the things he did about Tania. By the way, I wonder what the little witch
+has against him? I mean to ask her some day. But let's not trouble about
+Philip Holt any more. He is just a toady. I don't care what he says or
+does. We have done our duty by him for this afternoon at least. He won't
+join us again. Let's go over to that lovely hill and have a good,
+old-fashioned talk."
+
+Phil's face cleared. After all, she and Madge could get along much,
+better without troublesome outsiders.
+
+"Isn't it a wonderful afternoon, Phil?" asked the little captain after
+they had climbed the little hill and were seated on a grassy knoll. "We
+can see the ocean over there! Wouldn't you like to be swimming down there
+under the water, where it is so cool and lovely and there would be
+nothing to trouble one?"
+
+"What a water-baby you are," smiled Phil, giving her chum's arm a soft
+pressure. "I sometimes think that you must have come out of a sea-shell.
+I suppose you are thinking of the old pearl diver again."
+
+"Phil," demanded Madge abruptly, "have you ever thought of what
+profession you would have liked to follow if you had been born a boy
+instead of a girl?"
+
+"I do not have to think to answer that," replied Phyllis, "I know. If I
+were a boy, I should study to become a physician, like my father; but
+even though I am a girl, I am going to study medicine just the same. As
+soon as we get through college I shall begin my course."
+
+"Phil," Madge's voice sounded unusually serious, "don't set your heart
+too much, dear, on my going to college with you in the fall. I don't know
+it positively, but I think that Uncle is having some business trouble. He
+and Aunt have been worried for the past year about some stocks they own.
+I shan't feel that I have any right to let them send me to college unless
+I can make up my mind that I shall be willing to teach to earn my living
+afterward. And I can't teach, Phil, dear. I should never make a
+successful teacher," ended Madge with a sigh.
+
+"I can't imagine you as a teacher," smiled Phil, "but I am sure that you
+will marry before you are many years older."
+
+"Marry!" protested Madge indignantly. "Why do you think I shall marry?
+Why, I was wishing this very minute that I were a man so that I could set
+out on a voyage of discovery and sail around the world in a little ship
+of my own. Or, think, one might be a pearl-diver, or lead some exciting
+life like that. Now, Phil Alden, don't you go and arrange for me just to
+marry and keep house and never have a bit of fun or any excitement in my
+whole life!"
+
+Phyllis laughed teasingly. "Oh, you will have plenty of excitement, Madge
+dear, wherever you are or whatever you do. Don't you remember how Miss
+Betsey used to say that she knew something was going to happen whenever
+you were about? I suppose you would like to be a captain in the Navy like
+your father, so that you could spend all your time on the sea."
+
+"No," returned Madge, "I should want a ship of my own. I wouldn't like to
+be a captain in the Navy. There, you always have to do just what you are
+told to do, and you know, Phil, that obedience is not my strong point."
+The little captain laughed and shook her russet head. "You see, Phil, I
+think that if I could go around the world, perhaps in some far-away land
+I would find my father waiting for me."
+
+For several minutes the two chums were silent. At last Phil leaned
+forward and gave Madge's arm a gentle pinch. "Wake up, dear," she
+laughed, "perhaps some day you will own that little ship and go around
+the world in it. Just now, however, we had better go on to the houseboat.
+I believe Nellie and Lillian are going to wait at the golf club until the
+last mail comes in, so they can bring our letters along home with them.
+We must say good-bye to that nice Ethel Swann. She is a dear, in spite of
+her ill-bred friends."
+
+Phyllis and Madge found Miss Jenny Ann sitting in a steamer chair on the
+houseboat deck exchanging fairy stories with Tania. The little girl knew
+almost as many as did her chaperon, but Tania's stories were so full of
+her own odd fancies that it was hard to tell from what source they had
+come.
+
+"Do you know the story of 'The Little Tin Soldier,' Tania?" Miss Jenny
+Ann had just asked. "He was the bravest little soldier in the world,
+because he bore all kinds of misfortunes and never complained."
+
+With a whirl Tania was out of Miss Jenny Ann's lap and into Madge's arms.
+The child was devoted to each member of the houseboat party, but she was
+Madge's ardent adorer. She liked to play that she was the little
+captain's Fairy Godmother, and that she could grant any wish that Madge
+might make.
+
+Phil, Madge and Tania sat down at Miss Jenny Ann's feet to hear more
+about "The Brave Little Tin Soldier." Tania huddled close to Madge, her
+black head resting against the older girl's curls, as she listened to the
+harrowing adventures that befell the Tin Soldier.
+
+The sun was sinking. Away over the water the world seemed rose colored,
+but the shadows were deepening on the land. Phil espied Lillian and
+Eleanor coming toward the houseboat. Lillian waved a handful of white
+envelopes, but Eleanor walked more slowly and did not glance up toward
+her friends.
+
+Miss Jenny Ann rose hurriedly. "I must go in to see to our dinner," she
+announced. "Phil, after you have spoken to the girls, will you come in to
+help me? Madge may stay to look after Tania."
+
+The little captain was absorbed in a quiet twilight dream, and as Tania
+was in her lap she did not get up when Phil went forward to meet Lillian
+and Eleanor.
+
+Instantly Phil realized that something was the matter with Nellie.
+Eleanor's face was white and drawn and there were tears in her gentle,
+brown eyes. Lillian also looked worried and sympathetic, but was
+evidently trying to appear cheerful.
+
+"What is the matter, Eleanor? Has any one hurt your feelings?" asked Phil
+immediately. Eleanor was the youngest of the girls and always the one to
+be protected. Phyllis guessed that perhaps some one of the unpleasant
+acquaintances of Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar might have been unkind to
+her.
+
+But Eleanor shook her head dumbly.
+
+"Nellie has had some bad news from home," answered Lillian, tenderly
+putting her arm about Eleanor. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as she thinks."
+
+Madge overheard Lillian's speech and, lifting Tania from her lap, sprang
+to her feet.
+
+"Nellie, darling, what is it? Tell me at once!" she demanded. "If Uncle
+and Aunt are ill, we must go to them at once."
+
+"It isn't so bad as that, Madge," answered Eleanor, finding her voice;
+"only Mother has written to tell us that Father has lost a great deal of
+money. He has had to mortgage dear old 'Forest House,' and if he doesn't
+get a lot more money by fall, 'Forest House' will have to be sold."
+
+Nellie broke down. The thought of having to give up her dear old Virginia
+home, that had been in their family for five generations, was more than
+she could bear.
+
+Madge kissed Eleanor gently. In the face of great difficulties Madge was
+not the harum-scarum person she seemed. "Don't worry too much, Nellie,"
+she urged. "If Uncle and Aunt are well, then the loss of the money isn't
+so dreadful. Somehow, I don't believe we shall have to give up 'Forest
+House.' It would be too frightful! Perhaps Uncle will find the money in
+time to save it, or we shall get it in some way. I am nearly grown now. I
+ought to be able to help. Anyhow, I don't mean to be an expense to Uncle
+and Aunt any more after this summer." Madge's face clouded, although she
+tried to conceal her dismay. "Do Uncle and Aunt want us to leave the
+houseboat and come home at once?"
+
+Phil's and Lillian's faces were as long and as gloomy as their other
+chums' at this suggestion.
+
+But Eleanor shook her head firmly. "No; Father says positively that he
+does not wish us to leave the houseboat until our holiday is over. It is
+not costing us very much and he wishes us to have a good time this
+summer, so that we can bear whatever happens next winter."
+
+No one had noticed little Tania while the houseboat girls were talking.
+Her eyes were bigger and blacker than ever, and as Madge turned to go
+into the cabin she saw that there were tears in them.
+
+"What is it, Tania?" putting her arms about the quaint child.
+
+"Did you say that you didn't have all the money you wanted?" inquired
+Tania anxiously. "I didn't know that people like you ever needed money. I
+thought that all poor people lived in slums and took in washing like old
+Sal."
+
+Madge laughed. "I don't suppose the people in the tenements are as poor
+as we are sometimes, Tania, because they don't need so many things. But
+don't worry your head about me, little Fairy Godmother. I am sure that
+you will bring me good luck."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE
+
+
+"Madge, I am afraid that you and the girls are not having as good a time
+at Cape May as I had hoped you would have," remarked Mrs. Curtis to the
+little captain about a week later as they strolled along the beautiful
+ocean boulevard that overlooked the sea. Only the day before Mrs. Curtis
+and Tom had returned from Chicago. Just behind them, Lillian, Miss Jenny
+Ann, Phyllis, Tom Curtis and Mrs. Curtis's protege, Philip Holt, loitered
+along the beach. They were too far away to overhear the conversation of
+the two women.
+
+"On the contrary, we are having a perfectly beautiful time," answered
+Madge, her face radiant with the pleasure of her surroundings. "I think
+Cape May is one of the loveliest places in the whole world! And we girls
+have met the most splendid old sea captain. He has the dearest, snuggest
+little house up the bay! He was once a deep-sea diver and knows the most
+fascinating stories about the treasures of the sea." Madge ceased
+speaking. She could tell from her friend's slightly bored expression that
+Mrs. Curtis was not interested in the story of a common sailor.
+
+"Yes, Madge, I know about all that," Mrs. Curtis returned a little
+coldly. "What I meant is that I fear you girls are not enjoying the
+social life of Cape May, which is what I looked forward to for you. I do
+wish, dear, that you cared more for society and less for such people as
+this old sailor and a tenement child like Tania. I doubt if this man is a
+fit associate for you."
+
+Madge's blue eyes darkened. She thought of the splendid old sailor, with
+his great strength and gentle manners, his knowledge of the world and his
+fine simplicity, and of queer, loving little Tania, but she wisely held
+her peace. "I am sorry, too, that I don't like society more if you wish
+it," she replied sweetly. "I do like the society of clever, agreeable
+people, but not--I like Ethel Swann and her friends immensely," she
+ended. "And, please, don't say anything against my old pearl diver, Mrs.
+Curtis, until you see him. I am sure that you and Tom will think that he
+is splendid."
+
+Mrs. Curtis looked searchingly at Madge, and Madge returned her gaze
+without lowering her eyes. Mrs. Curtis's face softened. She found it hard
+to scold her favorite, but she had been very much vexed at the story that
+Philip Holt had repeated to her of Madge's escapades at Cape May, and how
+she accused Roy Dennis of cowardice when he had taken her and her friends
+on his boat after Madge's and Phil's own heedlessness had caused their
+skiff to be overturned. Somehow, the tale of the throwing of the ball on
+board Roy Dennis's yacht and of frightening Mabel Farrar had also gone
+abroad in Cape May. Lillian had confided the anecdote to Ethel Swann
+under promise of the greatest secrecy. The story had seemed to Ethel too
+ridiculous to keep to herself, so she had repeated it to another friend,
+after demanding the same promise that Lillian had exacted from her. And
+so the story had traveled and grown until it was a very mischievous tale
+that Philip Holt had recounted to Mrs. Curtis, taking care that Tom
+Curtis was not about when he told it.
+
+Mrs. Curtis thought Madge too old for such practical jokes. She also
+believed that Madge should have more dignity and self-control. She loved
+her very dearly, and she wished her to come to live with her as her
+daughter after her own, daughter, Madeleine, had married, but Mrs. Curtis
+was determined that the little captain should learn to be less impetuous
+and more conventional.
+
+"Philip Holt has told you something about me, hasn't he, Mrs. Curtis?"
+asked Madge meekly, hiding the flash in her eyes by lowering her lids.
+
+"Philip told me very little. He is the soul of honor," answered Mrs.
+Curtis quickly. "You are absurdly prejudiced against him. But with the
+little that he told me and what I have gathered from other sources, I
+feel that you have been most indiscreet. I can't help thinking that the
+various things that have happened may be laid at your door, and that the
+other girls have just stood by you, as they always do."
+
+Madge bit her lips. "Whatever has occurred that you don't like is my
+fault, Mrs. Curtis," she confessed, "and Phil, Lillian and Nellie _have_
+stood by me. I am sorry that you are angry."
+
+The other young people were coming closer. Not for worlds would Madge
+have had them overhear her conversation with Mrs. Curtis. She was too
+proud and too hurt to ask Mrs. Curtis just what Philip Holt had said
+against her. Neither would she retaliate against him by telling her
+friend of his rudeness.
+
+Mrs. Curtis put one arm about Madge. "It is all right, my dear," she
+said, softening a little, "but you must promise me that you will not do
+such harum-scarum things again, and that you will try to keep your
+temper." Mrs. Curtis was on the point of asking Madge to give up her
+acquaintance with the sailor and not to see the man again, but she knew
+that her young friend was feeling a little hurt and no doubt resentful
+toward her, so she put off making her request until a later time.
+
+"Tania has behaved very well, so far, hasn't she, Madge?" Mrs. Curtis
+tactfully changed the subject. "I confess I am surprised. Philip Holt
+assured me that the child was continually in mischief in the tenement
+neighborhood where she lives. When he took her into the neighborhood
+house to try to help her she positively stole something. I am afraid
+Tania's mother was not the woman you think she was; she was only a cheap
+little actress, a dancer." Mrs. Curtis glanced at her companion. Madge
+was eyeing her seriously.
+
+"It isn't like you, Mrs. Curtis, dear, to say things against people.
+Philip Holt must have----" Madge stopped abruptly. At the same time Tom
+Curtis came up from behind to join his mother and the girl.
+
+"Come on, Madge, and have a race with me across the sands," he urged.
+"Mother will be trying to make you so grown-up that we can't have any
+sport at all. Besides, you are looking pale. I am sure you need exercise.
+There is a crowd over there in front of the music pavilion. I will wager
+a five-pound box of candy that I can beat you to it. Philip Holt will
+entertain Mother. She likes him better than she does the rest of us,
+anyhow, because he devotes his time to good works and to working good
+people," added Tom teasingly, under his breath.
+
+While Tom was talking Madge darted off across the sands. She never would
+get over her love of running, she felt sure, until she was old and
+rheumatic. The color came back to her cheeks and the laughter to her
+eyes.
+
+Tom was close behind her. "Madge Morton, you didn't give me a fair
+start," he protested, "you rushed away before I was ready. I thought you
+always played fair?"
+
+Madge dropped into a walk. "I do try to, Tom," she answered more
+earnestly than Tom had expected. His remark had been made only in fun.
+"You believe in me, don't you, Tom?" she added pleadingly.
+
+"Now and forever, Madge, through thick and thin," answered Tom steadily.
+
+They had now come up nearer the crowd of people on the beach. Up on a
+grand stand a band was playing an Italian waltz, and an eager crowd had
+gathered, apparently to listen to the music.
+
+But the two young people soon saw that on the hard sand a child was
+dancing. Tom stopped outside the circle of watchers, but Madge went
+forward into it. She had at once recognized little Tania! Eleanor had
+been left on the houseboat to take care of the child, but Eleanor was now
+nowhere to be seen, and her charge had wandered into mischief.
+
+Tania was dancing in her most bewitching and wonderful fashion. Madge
+could not help feeling a little embarrassed pride in her. The child was
+moving like a flower swayed by the wind. She poised first on one foot,
+then on the other, then flitted forward on both pointed toes, her thin,
+eager arms outstretched, curving and bending with the rhythm of the
+music. She wore her best white dress, the pride of her life, which
+Eleanor had lately made for her. On her head she had placed a wreath of
+wild flowers, which she must have woven for herself. They were like a
+fairy crown on her dark head. With the love of bright colors, which she
+must have inherited from some Italian ancestor, she had twisted a bright
+scarlet sash about her waist.
+
+Again Madge saw that Tania was utterly unconscious of the audience about
+her. She looked neither to the right nor to the left, but straight upward
+to the turquoise-blue sky.
+
+How different Tania's audience to-day from the crowd of people that had
+watched her on the street corner when Eleanor and Madge had first seen
+her! Yet these gay society folk were even more fascinated by the child's
+wonderful art. They could better appreciate her remarkable dancing.
+
+Tania did not even see her beloved Madge, who was silently watching her.
+Tania's usually pale cheeks glowed as scarlet as her sash. Unconsciously
+the little girl's movements were like those of a butterfly, a-flutter
+with the joy of the sunshine and new life.
+
+The music stopped suddenly and with it Tania's dance ceased as abruptly.
+She stood poised for a single instant on one dainty foot, with her
+graceful arms still swaying above her flower-crowned head. Her audience
+watched her breathlessly, for the effect of the child's grace had been
+almost magical.
+
+"Wasn't that a wonderful performance?" whispered Tom in Madge's ear. "The
+child is an artist! Where do you suppose she learned to dance like
+that?"
+
+But Tania had come back to earth in a brief second. To Madge's
+mystification, Tania started about among the people who had been watching
+her performance with her small hands clasped together like a cup.
+
+The child courtesied shyly to a fat old lady. Her gesture was
+unmistakable. The woman rummaged in her chain pocket-book and dropped a
+silver quarter into Tania's outstretched hands. The next onlooker was
+more generous. Tania's eyes shone as she felt the size and weight of a
+big silver dollar.
+
+Few people in the Cape May crowd knew who Tania was, or whence she had
+come. They probably thought that the object of the dance had been to earn
+money.
+
+For a few moments Madge had been paralyzed by Tania's peculiar actions.
+She did not realize what they meant. In this lapse of time the rest of
+their party joined them.
+
+It was the expression on Mrs. Curtis's face that made Madge appreciate
+what Tania was doing.
+
+"What on earth is Tania about?" exclaimed Lillian in puzzled tones. She
+saw the child standing before a young man who was evidently teasing her
+and refusing her request for money.
+
+"She has been dancing like a monkey with a hand organ," answered Philip
+Holt scornfully. "I am afraid Cape May people will hardly understand it.
+It looks as though the young women on the 'Merry Maid' were in need of
+money." The young man laughed as though his last remark had been intended
+for a joke.
+
+"None of that talk, Holt." Madge caught Tom's angry tone as she hurried
+forward to Tania. The little captain could have cried with mortification
+and embarrassment. In the crowd of curious onlookers she caught sight of
+Mabel Farrar's and Roy Dennis's sneering faces.
+
+"Tania!" she cried sharply. "What in the world are you doing? Stop taking
+that money at once!"
+
+Tania glanced around and discovered Madge. Instead of looking ashamed of
+herself, the child's face grew radiant. "Madge," she cried, in a high
+voice that could be heard all about them, "it is all for you!"
+
+Tania rushed forward with her outstretched hands overflowing with
+silver.
+
+Madge could have sunk through the sands for shame. Mrs. Curtis's face
+flamed with anger and chagrin. She might have been able to explain to her
+friends that Tania was only a street child and knew no better than to
+dance for money; but how could she ever explain the remark to Madge? It
+looked as though Madge had been a party to Tania's dancing and begging.
+
+Madge was overcome with embarrassment and humiliation. She knew that she
+must, for the minute, appear like a beggar to the crowd of Cape May
+people. For just that instant she would have liked to repulse Tania, to
+have thrust the child and her money away from her before every one. But a
+glance at Tania's eager, happy face restrained her. She put her arm
+protectingly about the little girl, hiding her in the shelter of her
+body. "I don't want the money, Tania," she whispered. "It wasn't right
+for you to have taken it from these people."
+
+"Don't you want it?" faltered Tania. "I thought you said last night that
+you and Eleanor were very poor, and that you needed some money very much.
+All the time I was in bed last night I thought of what your Fairy
+Godmother could do to help you. I know how to do but one thing--to dance
+as my mother taught me. How can it be wrong to take the money from
+people? I have often done it in New York. They only gave it to me because
+they liked my dancing." Madge could feel Tania's hot tears on her hands.
+
+She clasped Tania closer. "It isn't exactly wrong, Tania; I was mistaken.
+It was just different. I will have to explain it to you afterward. Now we
+must give the money back to the people again."
+
+Holding tight to Tania's hand, Madge walked among the group of strangers,
+explaining Tania's actions as best she could without hurting the little
+girl's feelings. It was one of the hardest things that the proud little
+captain had ever been called upon to do. But a part of the crowd had
+scattered. It was not possible to find them all and return their silver.
+Tania was too puzzled and heart-broken to continue her errand long. She
+did not understand why Madge had refused to take her gift, which she
+thought she had fairly earned. Finally she could hold back her sobs no
+longer. Dropping her few remaining nickels and dimes on the sand she
+broke away from Madge's clasp and ran like a little wild creature away
+from everyone.
+
+Madge stopped for just a second among her friends before following
+Tania.
+
+"You see, Madge," remarked Mrs. Curtis coldly, "Tania is quite
+impossible. I knew the child would get you into difficulties, and it is
+just as I feared. She must be sent away at once."
+
+But Madge shook her head with a decision that was unmistakable.
+
+"No," she answered quietly, "Tania shall not be sent away. None of you
+understand, and I can't explain it to you now, but Tania thought she was
+doing something for Nellie and me. She was foolish, of course, and I will
+see that she never does it again."
+
+With her head held high, Madge hurried away in pursuit of her Fairy
+Godmother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"THE ANCHORAGE"
+
+
+Madge was alone in the "Water Witch," which had been mended and was as
+good as new. She had just come from an interview with Mrs. Curtis, in
+which she had tried to make her friend understand the reason for Tania's
+behavior of the day before. Mrs. Curtis, however, would not take the
+little captain's view of the matter. She dwelt on the fact that Tania had
+slipped away from the houseboat without letting Eleanor know of it, and
+that she was a naughty and disobedient child.
+
+Madge also believed that Mrs. Curtis no longer loved her so dearly as in
+the early days of their acquaintance. The young girl was sure that some
+influence was being brought to bear to prejudice her friend against her.
+But what could she do? Philip Holt was trying to destroy the affection
+Mrs. Curtis felt for Madge in order to ingratiate himself. It looked as
+though he were going to succeed. Madge was too proud to ask questions or
+to accuse Philip Holt with deliberately trying to influence her friend
+against her. Although she was only a young girl, she realized that love
+does not amount to very much in this world unless it has faith and
+sympathy behind it. So long as she had done nothing she knew to be wrong,
+and for which she should make an apology, she could only wait to see if
+Mrs. Curtis's affection would be restored to her or cease altogether.
+
+As usual, when she was troubled, the impulse came to her to be alone on
+the water. She had explained to Miss Jenny Ann that she might be gone for
+several hours, so there was no immediate reason why she should return to
+the houseboat. The other girls were yachting with some Cape May friends.
+
+Madge rowed her boat up the bay toward the home of the old sailor. She
+was not far from the very place where Captain Jules had rescued Tania and
+her a short while before. She thought of the strange-looking beam
+sticking up out of the sandy bottom of the bay on which Tania's dress had
+caught. It had certainly looked like the broken mast of an old ship. She
+determined to ask Captain Jules if any wrecks had recently occurred near
+that part of the bay, and concluded that she would row up to the sailor's
+house for the express purpose of asking him this question. Of course,
+this was only an excuse. She was deeply anxious to call on the old sailor
+again and, if possible, persuade him to keep his promise to her to show
+her his diving suit, and to tell her more of his strange experiences at
+the bottom of the sea.
+
+Captain Jules was sitting in his favorite place on the big rock just by
+the water in front of his house. He was mending the sail of his fishing
+boat.
+
+Madge's boat came round a slight curve in the bay, dancing toward him.
+This time Captain Jules spied his guest and saluted her as he would have
+greeted a superior officer.
+
+The little captain blushed prettily as she returned his salute in her
+best naval fashion.
+
+The old captain looked hurriedly toward his small house. There was no
+sight or sound of any one about. He seemed uncomfortable for a moment,
+then his face cleared. His deep blue eyes gleamed and his mouth set
+squarely. "Coming ashore to make me a call, Miss Madge?" he asked
+invitingly.
+
+Madge nodded. "If I shan't be in your way. You must let me just sit there
+on the rock by you. I have been reading a perfectly thrilling book about
+pearl-divers," she announced as soon as she was comfortably settled, "but
+none of the stories were as thrilling as the ones you told us. The book
+said that pearls had been found in New Jersey. I wonder if you have ever
+thought of diving down to the bottom of this bay to see if it holds any
+treasures?"
+
+The sailor was studying the girl's face so earnestly that he forgot to
+answer her.
+
+"Oh, yes, I have thought of it," he replied a little later, smiling at
+his guest. "A man never wholly forgets his trade. But what a taste you
+have for sea yarns, little lady! I half-way think, now, that if you had
+not been born a girl you might have followed the sea for your calling."
+
+"I should have loved it best of anything in the world," answered Madge
+fervently, gazing at the beautiful expanse of sunny, blue water. "I never
+feel as much at home anywhere as I do on the sea. You see," she continued
+confidingly, "I have a reason for loving the water. My father was a
+sailor. He was a captain in the United States Navy once."
+
+"'A captain in the United States Navy,'" Captain Jules repeated huskily.
+"I thought so. I thought so."
+
+"Why?" asked Madge wonderingly.
+
+Captain Jules pulled his needle slowly through a heavy piece of sail
+cloth. It must have stuck, he was so long about it, and his big hands
+fumbled it so clumsily.
+
+"Oh, because of your liking for the water, Miss Madge," he returned
+quietly. "You see, there are two great loves born in the hearts of men
+and women that you never can get away from. The one is the love of the
+soil and the other is the love of the sea. No matter what your life is,
+if you have those two passions in you, you've got to get back to the
+country or to the water when your chance comes. But why do you say that
+your father was once a captain in the United States Navy? Is he dead?"
+
+"I am afraid so," replied Madge faintly. Of late she was beginning to
+believe that her uncle and aunt, Mrs. Curtis and all her older friends
+were right. If her father were not dead in all these long years, surely
+he would have tried to find her. He would have sought to discover some
+news of the daughter whom he had left when she was only a baby.
+
+Captain Jules seemed about to say something, then, changed his mind. He
+shook his great, shaggy, gray head and looked at Madge tenderly. "Is your
+mother living?" he inquired.
+
+"No, she died soon after my father went away to join his ship on his last
+voyage," Madge went on sadly, her eyes filling with tears. She was half
+tempted to tell the old sailor her father's story, then decided to
+reserve it until some future day when she felt that she knew him better.
+In spite of her liking for the old sea captain, she realized that she had
+hardly known him long enough to make him her confidant.
+
+Captain Jules continued to sew. He opened his mouth, to speak once or
+twice and then closed it again. Finally he asked Madge huskily, "What was
+your father's name, child?"
+
+"Captain Robert Morton," replied Madge slowly. "He was from Virginia. If
+I knew him to be alive, I'd be the happiest girl in the world."
+
+Captain Jules cast a peculiar glance in her direction which Madge did not
+see.
+
+"My dear little mate," he said slowly, "some day a young man will come
+along who will be far more to you than any old father could have been.
+But what made your father go away? If he was a captain in the Navy, what
+made him resign his command?"
+
+"I can't tell you that to-day, Captain Jules. Perhaps I'll tell you some
+day when I know you better; in fact, I am sure I shall tell you. Perhaps
+when I do tell you I shall ask you to do me a great favor. Perhaps I
+shall ask you to help me hunt for him. I'll tell you a secret. Uncle and
+Aunt have been good to me and I love them dearly, but I want my own
+father, and I can't, I won't, believe he is dead. That is, not until I
+have absolute proof."
+
+"Little girl!" exclaimed Captain Jules in such a strange voice that Madge
+was startled, "I promise you that I'll help you find him." Then in a
+calmer tone of voice he said: "I told you that I would show you my
+diver's suit. If you will wait on my porch I will go around inside the
+house to see if I can find it."
+
+He rose hastily and disappeared into the house, leaving Madge to wonder
+why the few words she had spoken concerning her father had affected the
+old sea captain so strangely.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+TANIA'S NEMESIS
+
+
+Captain Jules was gone a long time, but Madge did not mind waiting for
+him. She loved the odd house with its roof shaped like three sails and
+its restful name, "The Anchorage."
+
+When Captain Jules came back with the great suit his face was pale,
+almost haggard, but he was smiling good-humoredly. "Come, stand over here
+by this window while I show you my old togs. I haven't looked at this
+diving suit myself for several years."
+
+Madge was too much interested in the diving dress to glance in at the
+captain's window to see if she could catch a glimpse of the inside of the
+snug little house that she had not yet been invited to enter.
+
+The diving suit was much lighter than she had expected to find it. It
+weighed only about twenty pounds. It was made of water-proof material and
+had a large helmet of copper with great circular glasses in front that
+looked like goggle eyes.
+
+Captain Jules explained that there were two lines with which the diver
+communicated with the outside world. The one was the air line, and it was
+used to pump air down to the man below in the water. The life line was
+usually hitched around the diver's waist. This line was let out to any
+depth the diver required, and by pulling on it the diver could signal to
+the men who followed his course: one jerk, pull up; two, more air; three,
+lower the bag. Madge was utterly fascinated with the netted bag, made of
+rope, that Captain Jules showed her. He told her that the pearl-diver
+always carried a bag to hold the treasures that he finds at the bottom of
+the sea. To her vivid imagination, the empty bag was even now filled with
+shining pearls, the rarest treasures of the sea.
+
+The young girl persuaded Captain Jules to let her dress up in his diver's
+suit, when she stumbled about the veranda in it, her gay laughter
+mingling with the captain's deep chuckles of delight.
+
+"O Captain Jules!" she pleaded, "do take me down to the bottom of the sea
+with you. I have always wanted to be a mermaid, and this may be the only
+chance I shall ever have. 'Only divers know of things below, of water's
+green and fishes' sheen,'" she chanted gayly.
+
+The old sea captain gazed at Madge, breathing a deep sigh of
+satisfaction. "I believe you have the courage to do it if I were to let
+you try," he murmured. "It comes nearer to convincing me than anything
+else."
+
+"Captain Jules," continued the girl earnestly, "please, please let's go
+down to the bottom of this bay. You could take me with you and then there
+wouldn't be any danger. We have been down together without diving suits
+and here we are safe and sound on land again! You said you thought there
+might be pearls in the oyster beds of this bay. We could look, at any
+rate. I saw the most wonderful things when I was searching for Tania. It
+seemed as though her dress was caught on the broken spar of an old ship,
+though, of course, I couldn't be sure. Have there been many wrecks in
+this bay? Do you suppose it was a ship's spar?"
+
+"There are always wrecks on the water, child. And you mustn't be talking
+nonsense about diving down in this bay along with me," answered Captain
+Jules severely. He kept his eyes fastened on his diving suit with an
+affectionate gleam in them. "Maybe, though, I will make a diving party of
+one and go down in the bay alone. I'd give you the pearls I found down
+there."
+
+Madge shook her head. "That wouldn't be fair," she said, setting her red
+lips together obstinately. Captain Jules, she felt sure, would be easy to
+manage. If he did any diving in the Delaware Bay within the next few
+weeks, he must take her with him.
+
+She wrote secretly to New York City to ask what a diver's suit would
+cost. She was discouraged by the answer, but she did not give up hope.
+She was also very careful not to let Miss Jenny Ann or Mrs. Curtis know
+anything of the wild scheme that was evolving in her head.
+
+Almost every day the girls saw Captain Jules. Either they went up the bay
+to call on him, or he made a visit to the houseboat.
+
+The old captain never invited the girls inside his house, but they had
+great frolics in his tidy yard. The captain explained that his house was
+not neat enough to be seen by young ladies, as it had only a man
+housekeeper.
+
+Even Mrs. Curtis became a little less prejudiced against Captain Jules.
+She could not but confess that he was a fine old man, though she still
+did not see why Madge was so much attracted by him. But the girl bided
+her time. The four girls and their friends went off on long fishing trips
+with Captain Jules. Sometimes Mrs. Curtis, Tom, and their guest, Philip
+Holt, went with them. The enmity between Madge and Philip increased every
+day, nor did Madge any longer make much effort to conceal her dislike for
+him.
+
+Philip Holt had a special reason for his dislike for Madge Morton. He had
+come to Cape May with the idea of making Mrs. Curtis do an important
+favor for him upon which his whole future depended. He feared that Madge,
+who looked upon him as a hypocrite, would find out his true character,
+tell her friend, and thus ruin his prospects.
+
+A singular misfortune had befallen him. Who could have guessed that one
+of the few people who knew his real history, Tania, the little street
+child, would be picked up by the houseboat girls and brought to Cape May
+for the summer? Tania must not be allowed to betray him. If she did, Mrs.
+Curtis must not believe either Madge or Tania. The young man had to lay
+his plans carefully, but he was a born hypocrite and he meant to
+accomplish his end.
+
+His first opportunity to further his cause came one morning when he and
+Mrs. Curtis were sitting on the veranda of her summer cottage. Tom had
+gone out sailing and was not expected back for several hours, so that
+Philip believed that the coast was clear. He began by telling Mrs. Curtis
+something of the charity work that he had recently done in New York City
+and so brought the subject about to Tania.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Curtis, you are so generous," the young man said admiringly.
+"I have just learned that after the summer holiday is over you intend to
+send Miss Morton's protege, Tania, to a boarding school. It is so kind in
+you."
+
+Mrs. Curtis shook her head. "Oh, no," she answered, "it is very little to
+do. Really, I don't see what else could be done with the child. She is
+very queer and not attractive to me, but Madge is fond of her and, as I
+am very fond of Madge, I shall do what is best for the little girl."
+
+"Ah," murmured Philip Holt vaguely, "but do you feel sure that a boarding
+school is the best place for the girl? She is so unruly, so untruthful! I
+fear that she would give you a great deal of trouble and responsibility
+unless she were placed under greater restraint. I have wondered for some
+time what should be done for the child. She has caused a lot of mischief
+among the children on the street in her tenement section. It seems to me
+that she ought to be sent to some kind of an institution where she would
+be more closely watched--an asylum or home for incorrigible children."
+
+Mrs. Curtis looked worried and bit her lips. "That is rather hard on the
+child, isn't it? Still, I could not undertake to be responsible for
+Tania's good behavior at school. She seems very hard to control. I will
+watch her more closely, and, if she shows more signs of untruthfulness, I
+shall have to consider your suggestion. However, I will talk the matter
+over with Madge. I wish you would walk down to the houseboat for me and
+invite the girls to come up to the hotel for luncheon. I hope they are
+not off somewhere with Captain Jules. He seems to claim the greater share
+of their attention lately."
+
+Philip Holt walked off, very well pleased with his interview. He had
+conveyed to Mrs. Curtis precisely the impression he had intended to
+convey.
+
+Ever since his arrival at Cape May Philip Holt had wished to see little
+Tania alone. He had warned the child that she was not to behave as though
+she had ever seen him before, yet he was still afraid that she might make
+a confidante of Madge. He needed to make his threat to her more
+terrifying. He decided to find her and intimidate her so thoroughly that
+she would not dare betray her previous acquaintance with him.
+
+There was but one person in the world of whom the queer, elf-like Tania
+was afraid. That person was Philip Holt! She had feared him since the day
+of her own mother's death, and the very thought of him was enough to fill
+her childish soul with terror.
+
+Tania was playing alone on the sands near that houseboat at the time Mrs.
+Curtis and Philip Holt were discussing her future. Madge and Miss Jenny
+Ann were inside the houseboat, within calling distance of Tania, but not
+where they could see her. The little girl had just built a house of
+shining pebbles and was gazing at it with a pleased smile when she heard
+a step near her on the sand. Tania stared up at Philip's thin, blonde
+face in terror-stricken silence.
+
+"Tania," the young man asked harshly, "have you told any one down here
+that you have ever seen or known me before?"
+
+Tania shook her head mutely.
+
+"Remember, if you do, I am going to have you shut up in a big house with
+iron bars at the windows where you can never go out or see your friends
+any more," Philip Holt went on, keeping his voice lowered to a whisper.
+
+Slowly Tania's black eyes dropped. She tried to be brave and to pretend
+that she did not care, but the loss of her freedom was the one thing that
+Tania feared with all her soul. If she were shut up somewhere, how could
+she ever talk to her fairies, or see the blue sky that she so loved? And
+now, to be parted from the girls forever was too dreadful! Indeed, she
+would not dare to tell what she knew. Philip Holt was sure of it.
+
+It was at that moment that Madge slipped out on the houseboat deck to see
+if Tania were all right. To her surprise she saw that Philip Holt was
+talking to the little girl. She had not thought that Philip Holt cared
+enough for children to waste a minute's time with them. She therefore
+wondered at his sudden interest in Tania. Madge walked quietly off the
+houseboat. She was wearing tennis shoes and her softly-shod feet made no
+sound. She caught one glimpse of Tania's mute, white face and stopped
+short in time to hear Philip say:
+
+"Even if you do tell that old Sal is my mother, Tania, no one will
+believe you. She herself will deny it and help me to have you shut up,"
+declared Philip Holt menacingly.
+
+Madge caught each word as though it had been addressed to her. For
+Tania's sake, and because she knew that for many reasons it was wiser,
+she held her peace for the time being.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Holt?" she asked innocently. "I just saw you from the
+deck of the houseboat."
+
+Philip Holt leaped to his feet. But Madge's eyes were so clear and
+serene, her face so calm, that it was utterly impossible she could have
+overheard him.
+
+Philip delivered Mrs. Curtis's message and then left the two girls
+together. Madge dropped down on the sands by Tania and put her arm about
+her. "You need never tell me who Mr. Holt is, nor why you are afraid of
+him, Tania," she whispered; "I overheard what he said, and you need not
+be afraid. I will take care of you!"
+
+"He is the Wicked Genii," faltered Tania, "who hated the Princess and
+wanted to drive her away from her kingdom in Fairyland."
+
+"But he can't harm you, Tania, dear," comforted Madge. "He dare not try
+to take you away from us. I am going to tell Mrs. Curtis all about this
+Wicked Genii and if I'm not mistaken it will be he, not you who is sent
+away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CAPTAIN JULES MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+Little by little Madge was able to put together the whole story of Philip
+Holt's life. He was old Sal's son, and "Holt" was not his own name, but
+he rarely came near his mother, never gave her any help, and denied his
+relationship with her whenever it was necessary. When Philip Murphy was a
+small boy, he had been taken into the home of a wealthy family named
+Holt, but he had never been legally adopted as their child. He was raised
+in luxury and had made a great many wealthy friends, and he had learned
+to love money more than anything else in the world. But his rich patrons
+would not allow him entirely to desert his own mother. Twice every month
+he was made to go to see old Sal Murphy in her tenement home on the East
+Side. Philip Holt, who now went by the name of his foster parents, fairly
+loathed these visits. It was because of his hatred of them that he began
+to take his spite out on Tania when he was a lad of about fifteen, and
+poor Tania a baby of only six years old.
+
+Tania's mother had died in the same tenement where old Sal lived. There
+had been no one who wanted the little girl, so old Sal had taken her,
+beaten and starved her, and made her useful in any way that she could.
+
+When Philip Holt had grown to manhood his foster parents lost most of
+their money. A little later they died, leaving their foster son nothing.
+The young man had been used to luxury and rich friends, and he could not
+give them up, therefore he told his wealthy friends that because he had
+once been a poor boy he meant to devote his life to charity. He proposed
+to work among the New York poor and asked their cooperation. Large sums
+of money were given him to be used for charity, but Philip Holt believed
+too strongly in the theory that charity begins at home. Whenever it was
+possible he used a part of this money for himself. To make more, he began
+speculating in Wall Street. He lost two thousand, then five thousand
+dollars of the money that had been entrusted to him. For almost a year he
+had been the treasurer of a New York charitable organization, and the
+time was near at hand when he must give a report of the money that he had
+misused. He knew that disgrace, imprisonment, stared him in the face
+unless he could persuade Mrs. Curtis to advance him five thousand dollars
+for some charitable purpose, or give it to him for himself. He,
+therefore, did not intend to be balked in his plan by either Madge or
+Tania, no matter what desperate measures he had to employ.
+
+So there were two persons at Cape May who came to believe that they stood
+in dire need of money. Yet they wished it for very different reasons:
+Philip Holt wanted money to save himself from disgrace; Madge desired it
+to help her uncle and aunt save their old home, "Forest House," to send
+Eleanor back to graduate at Miss Tolliver's in the fall, to start on her
+search for her father, and, last of all, to take care of Tania.
+
+For Madge had managed the little waif's affairs most undiplomatically.
+When she discovered the threat that Philip held over Tania if she told
+his secret, the little captain went to Mrs. Curtis with the story. She
+did not wish her friend to be deceived by the young man, so she confided
+to Mrs. Curtis that Philip Holt, who was supposedly the son of some old
+friends, was really the child of old Sal of the tenements. Mrs. Curtis
+thought that Madge must be mistaken. She wrote to old Sal to ask her if
+it were true. The Irish woman was devoted to her son. She would have done
+anything in the world not to disgrace him. She answered Mrs. Curtis's
+letter by declaring that Philip Holt was no relative of hers, but a young
+man whom she knew because of his kindness to the poor. Mrs. Curtis was
+indignant. She insisted that Tania had told Madge a falsehood, and that
+Philip Holt was right in his opinion of Tania. It would not be well to
+send the child to a school; she should be put in some kind of an
+institution. This, however, Madge was determined should never happen. She
+had no money of her own, nor did she know where she was to obtain the
+means, but she made up her mind to find some way to provide for her
+quaint little Fairy Godmother.
+
+The morning after Madge's disquieting talk with Mrs. Curtis the four
+girls and Tania wandered up the bay to spend the morning in the woods
+near the water. Phyllis carried a book that she meant to read aloud,
+Madge a box of luncheon, and Eleanor and Lillian their sewing. Tania
+skipped along with her hand in Madge's. John had promised to join them
+later in the day if he returned in time from his trip on the water.
+
+The girls settled themselves under some trees whence they could command a
+view of the land and the bay. Madge lay down in the soft grass and rested
+her head in her hands. She meant to listen to Phil's reading, not to
+puzzle over her own worries. Phil's book gave a thrilling account of the
+early days in the Delaware Bay, when it was the favorite cruising place
+for pirates. It was rather hard to believe, when the girls gazed out on
+the smooth, blue water, that it had once been the scene of so many fierce
+adventures with pirates. Once a crew of seventy men, belonging to the
+famous Captain Kidd, had actually sailed up the Delaware Bay and
+frightened the people of Philadelphia.
+
+Madge had forgotten to listen. She could hear Phil's voice, but not her
+words. The history of piracy, of course, was very thrilling, but Madge
+did not see how any long-ago dead and buried pirates or their hidden
+treasures could help her out of her present difficulties. She stood in
+need of real riches.
+
+A sailboat dipped across the horizon and headed for the landing not far
+from where the girls were sitting, but no one of them noticed it.
+
+"Look ahoy! look ahoy!" a friendly voice cried out from across the
+water.
+
+Phyllis closed her book with a snap, Lillian and Eleanor dropped their
+sewing, Tania ran to the water's edge, and Madge sat up.
+
+It was Captain Jules who had hailed them.
+
+"Well, my hearties, is this a summer camp?" demanded the old sailor as
+his boat came near the land. "I have been all the way to the houseboat to
+find you. I have something to show you." Captain Jules's broad face shone
+with good humor. He was clad in his weather-beaten tarpaulins, and on his
+shoulder perched the monkey.
+
+Madge covered the sides of her curly head with her hands. "Please don't
+let the monkey pull my hair this morning," she pleaded as the captain
+came up.
+
+He tossed the monkey over to Tania, who cuddled it affectionately in her
+arms, and began talking softly to it.
+
+Then Captain Jules seated himself on the grass and the houseboat girls
+gathered about him in a circle. He put one great hand in his pocket.
+"I've some presents for you," he announced, trying to look very serious,
+but smiling in spite of himself.
+
+"What are they?" asked Lillian eagerly.
+
+"That's telling," returned the captain. "You must guess."
+
+"Shells," said Tania quickly.
+
+Captain Jules shook his head. "You're warm, little girl," he replied,
+"but you haven't guessed right yet."
+
+Lillian sighed. "I never could guess anything," she remarked sadly.
+"Please do tell us what it is."
+
+The captain relented and drew out of his pocket a handful of what seemed
+to be either oyster or mussel shells.
+
+"You've brought some oysters for our luncheon, haven't you?" guessed
+Eleanor. "You must stay and eat them with us."
+
+Captain Jules chuckled. "Oysters are out of season, child, and these are
+never good to eat."
+
+But Madge had clapped her hands together suddenly, her eyes shining. "You
+have been down to the bottom of the bay, haven't you, Captain Jules? And
+you've found some pearls!"
+
+Captain Jules shook his head. "I wouldn't call them pearls, exactly.
+They're too little and too poor. But come, now; maybe they are seed
+pearls. I went down under the water with the men who were looking over
+the oyster beds yesterday. Pearl oysters are not found in beds, like the
+edible oysters, so I wandered around on the bottom of the bay a bit and
+picked up these." The captain extended his great hand. Five pairs of
+eager eyes peered into it. There lay four nearly round, thick shells,
+horny and rough with tiny little pearls embedded in them.
+
+"'Pearls are angel's tears'," quoted Phil softly.
+
+Captain Jules seemed worried. "I searched about everywhere in the bay,
+but I could only find these four tiny pearls, and pretty lucky I was to
+find them!" the sailor continued. "They aren't of much value, but I
+wanted to give them to five girls, and that's just the difficulty." The
+captain looked at the houseboat party, which now included Tania, as
+though he did not know just what he should make up his mind to do.
+
+"Let's draw straws for them," suggested Eleanor sensibly.
+
+Madge shook her head. "No; Captain Jules is to give them to you and to
+leave me out. Remember, some stranger gave me a handsome pearl when I
+graduated. I have never had it mounted." Madge slipped her arm
+confidingly through the old sea captain's and gazed into his face with
+her most earnest expression. "Captain Jules is going to do something else
+for me; he is going down to the bottom of the bay again in his diving
+suit, and he is going to take me with him."
+
+"What a ridiculous idea!" protested Eleanor. "Just as though Captain
+Jules would think of doing any such thing."
+
+Lillian laughed unbelievingly, but Phil's face was serious. "It would be
+awfully jolly, wouldn't it? There wouldn't be any danger if Captain Jules
+should take you. Do please take Madge down with you, and then take me,"
+she insisted coaxingly.
+
+Captain Jules shook his head, but the little captain observed that he did
+not look half so shocked at the idea as he had the first time she
+proposed it. This was encouraging.
+
+Phil took hold of one of the captain's hands, and Madge the other.
+
+"Please, please, _please_!" they pleaded in chorus.
+
+"Miss Jenny Ann wouldn't let you," objected Captain Jules faintly.
+
+"But if we were to get her permission," argued Madge triumphantly, "then
+you would take us down to the bottom of the bay. I just knew you would,
+you are so splendid! I shall send to New York to see if we can rent a
+diving suit."
+
+"Never mind about that, I'll see about the suit," promised Captain Jules.
+"But it's all nonsense, and I have never said that I would take you. I
+wish I weren't a sailor. There is an old saying that a sailor can never
+refuse anything to a woman."
+
+"Here comes Tom," announced Lillian hurriedly.
+
+"Then don't say anything to him about the diving," warned Madge. "He will
+think it is perfectly dreadful for girls to attempt it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+
+The news that old Captain Jules Fontaine, the retired pearl diver, whose
+history was a mystery to most of the inhabitants at Cape May, was to take
+Madge Morton down to the bottom of Delaware Bay with him spread through
+the town and seaside resort like wildfire. It was in vain that the
+houseboat party and Captain Jules tried to keep the affair a secret.
+There were necessary arrangements to be made, men to be engaged to assist
+in the diving operations; it was impossible to deny everything.
+
+At first the plan seemed to outsiders like mere midsummer madness. Then
+the story began to grow. Cape May residents learned that Captain Jules
+had found pearls in the bottom of the bay. No one would believe the
+captain's statement that the pearls were of little value; gossip made the
+tiny pearls grow larger and larger, until they were fit for an empress.
+
+Captain Jules was besieged at his little house up the bay, although, as
+usual, he kept the door fastened against intruders. Half the fishermen
+and oystermen in the vicinity begged to be permitted to accompany the old
+sea diver in his descent into the water. Captain Jules politely explained
+that he needed no companions; he was merely going on a diving expedition
+to amuse two of his friends, Phyllis Alden and Madge Morton, who had a
+taste for watery adventure. He did not expect to find anything of value
+in the bottom of the bay. They were going down merely for sport.
+
+There was one person at Cape May who listened eagerly to any tale of the
+fabulous riches that the old pearl diver was evidently expecting to
+unearth. He was Philip Holt. The time of his visit at Cape May was
+rapidly passing. Mrs. Curtis was exceedingly kind and interested in her
+guest, but Philip did not feel that he dared approach her too abruptly
+with the request for so large a sum of money as five thousand dollars.
+Besides, Philip Holt knew that Tom Curtis disliked him heartily. Tom was
+not likely to approve a man whom Madge mistrusted; nor would Mrs. Curtis
+give away or lend five thousand dollars without first consulting her son.
+So the marvelous tale of the pearls to be found in the Delaware Bay
+rooted itself in Philip Holt's imagination. Here was another way to get
+out of his scrape. He was not fond of adventure, but he would do anything
+in the world for money. Perhaps he could find pearls enough not only to
+pay his debt, but to make him rich forever afterward.
+
+Quietly, and without a word to any one, Philip Holt made a secret visit
+to the house of the three sails. He implored Captain Jules to make him
+his diving companion. He attempted to bribe him with sums of money that
+he did not possess. He even threatened the old sailor that he would make
+investigations about his life and expose any secrets that the captain
+might wish to keep. Captain Jules only laughed at these threats. He was
+not going down in the bay for treasures, he declared. He expected to find
+absolutely nothing of any value. Positively he would not allow any one to
+accompany him but the two girls.
+
+Madge and Phyllis had a hard fight to persuade Miss Jenny Ann to give her
+consent to their plan for playing mermaid. But she was getting so
+accustomed to the exciting adventures of her girls that, when Captain
+Jules assured her there was really no special danger, so long as he kept
+a close watch on the diver with him, she finally agreed to the scheme.
+Captain Jules gave the two girls every kind of instruction in the art of
+diving that he thought necessary, and the day of the great watery
+adventure was set for the week ahead.
+
+On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, Madge awoke at daybreak. She felt a
+delicious, shivery thrill pass over her that was one part fear and the
+other part rapture.
+
+"Phil," she whispered a few seconds later, when she heard her chum
+stirring in the berth above her, "can you feel fins growing where your
+feet are? Your flop in the bed sounded as though you were a real mermaid!
+Just think, at ten o'clock sharp we are going down to explore a new
+world! I wonder if there were ever any girl divers before? You are
+awfully good to let me go down first."
+
+"No, I am not," answered Phil soberly. "If there is any danger, I am
+letting you go down to it first. But I shall watch above the water, with
+all my eyes, to see that everything goes right. The captain has explained
+the whole business of diving to us so thoroughly that I believe I can
+tell if anything is wrong with you below the surface. You'll be careful,
+won't you, Madge? You know you are usually rather reckless. Don't stay
+down too long."
+
+"Oh, Captain Jules won't let me be reckless this time. We are not going
+down into very deep water, anyway, and a professional diver can stay
+under several hours when the water is only about five fathoms deep."
+
+Madge and Phyllis ate a very light breakfast. Captain Jules had told them
+that a diver must never go down into the water on a full stomach, as it
+would make him too short-winded. While the two prospective divers were
+eating poor Miss Jenny Ann was wondering what had ever induced her to
+give her consent to so mad an enterprise as this diving.
+
+Every effort had been made to keep a crowd away from the pier from which
+Captain Jules meant to send out the boats with the tenders, who were the
+men to look after the safety of Madge and himself.
+
+As the girls came up, with Miss Jenny Ann, to join Captain Jules they saw
+twenty or thirty people about. Mrs. Curtis and Tom, accompanied by Philip
+Holt, had come down to the pier. Mrs. Curtis would hardly speak to Madge,
+she was so angry at the risk she believed the little captain was running.
+She and Madge had not been very friendly since they had disagreed so
+utterly in Madge's report of the real character and name of Philip Holt.
+
+Madge and Phyllis each wore a close fitting, warm woolen dress. Madge had
+tucked up her red-brown curls into a tight knot. Her eyes were glowing,
+but her face was white and her lips a little less red when Captain Jules
+came forward to fasten her into her diving suit.
+
+"Don't attempt it, Madge, if you are frightened," urged Miss Jenny Ann,
+who was feeling dreadfully frightened herself. "I am sure Captain Jules
+will forgive you if you back out."
+
+Captain Jules looked at Madge searchingly. Her eyes smiled bravely into
+his, although her heart was going pit-a-pat.
+
+"Miss Madge is not afraid," answered Captain Jules curtly. "Robert
+Morton's daughter has no right to know fear."
+
+Madge first slipped her feet into a pair of heavy leather boots. She gave
+a gay laugh as she slipped into her rubber cloth suit, which was made in
+one piece. "I feel just like a walrus," she confided to Tom Curtis, who
+was watching her with set lips.
+
+Then Madge and Captain Jules, who was in exactly the same costume, got
+into their boats and moved out a little distance from the shore.
+
+Tom Curtis had asked Captain Jules's consent to sit in one of the boats
+with Phil. At the last moment Philip Holt stepped calmly into the other.
+No one stopped to argue with him, or to thrust him out; the whole party
+was too much excited.
+
+Not for all the pearls in all the seas would Captain Jules Fontaine have
+allowed one hair of Madge's head to be injured. But he really did not
+believe that she would be in any danger under the water with him. He had
+arranged every detail of the diving perfectly. He would watch her every
+movement at the bottom of the bay. To tell the truth, Captain Jules was
+immensely proud of Madge's and Phil's bravery in desiring to accompany
+him.
+
+The final moment for the dive arrived. Madge waved her hand to the crowd
+of her friends lining the shore. She flung back her head and looked
+gayly, triumphantly, up at the blue sky above her, with its sweep of
+white, sailing clouds. Below her the water looked even more deeply blue.
+
+"Remember, Madge," whispered Captain Jules calmly, "the one quality a
+diver needs more than anything else is presence of mind. Keep a clear
+head under the water and nothing shall harm you, I swear. But above all,
+don't forget your signals."
+
+With his own hands Captain Jules fastened the brass corselet about
+Madge's slender neck and set a big copper helmet which he screwed over
+her head to her corselet. Madge then surveyed the world only through the
+glass windows at each side of her head and in front. Her air-tube entered
+her helmet at the back. Two men in one of the boats were to keep the
+young girl diver supplied with oxygen by pumping fresh air down through
+this tube.
+
+A moment later Captain Jules stood rigged in the same costume as Madge.
+
+"Steady, my girl," Captain Jules warned her.
+
+"Aye, aye, Captain," returned Madge quietly, "I'm ready. Let us go down
+together to the bottom of the bay."
+
+"Pump away," ordered the captain.
+
+There was a splash on the surface of the clear water, a long-drawn gasp
+from Madge's friends; then a few bubbles rose. Rapidly, skillfully,
+Madge's tenders played out her life and pipe lines, and Madge Morton
+disappeared from the world of men. Captain Jules made his plunge a few
+seconds in advance of his companion.
+
+In the boat where Tom Curtis and Phyllis Alden sat there was a
+breathless, intense silence. The boy and girl happened to be in the boat
+with the men who were looking out for the welfare of Captain Jules.
+Philip Holt was with Madge's tenders.
+
+Phyllis knew that there was but one way in which she could follow her
+chum's course below the surface of the water. She could watch her life
+and air lines. Captain Jules had made it plain to Phyllis that all the
+time the diver is under water small ripples will appear near his air
+line. These bubbles are caused by the air that the diver breathes out
+from the valve in the side of his diving helmet.
+
+Phyllis watched the lines doggedly. Captain Jules was to keep Madge under
+water only about fifteen or twenty minutes, but at that a minute may
+appear longer than an hour.
+
+Suddenly Phyllis Alden discovered that the man who was tending Madge's
+air pump seemed to be working less vigorously. He pumped unevenly. Once
+he swayed, as though he were about to fall over in his seat.
+
+In a second it flashed over Phyllis that the man was ill. He was a
+strong, red-faced individual, but his face turned to a kind of ghastly
+pallor. It was all so quick that Phil had no time to speak from her boat.
+Philip Holt, who was in the same boat with the man, grasped the situation
+as quickly as Phyllis did. With a single motion he took the tender's
+place at the air-pump. Phil saw that he was pumping away with vigor.
+
+At this moment Phil turned to speak to Tom Curtis. "Tom, how long have
+they been under the water?" she whispered.
+
+"Ten minutes," returned Tom, glancing hastily at his watch.
+
+"It seems ten hours," murmured Phil, as though she dared not speak
+aloud.
+
+Tug, tug! Phil thought she saw Madge's air line give two desperate jerks.
+Two pulls at the line was the diver's signal for more air. Phil knew that
+without a doubt. Yet Philip Holt seemed to be pumping vigorously. At
+least, he had been only the second before when Phil last looked at him.
+
+Again Phil saw Madge's air line jerk twice.
+
+Tom Curtis and the two men in Captain Jules's boat were vainly trying to
+interpret some signals that Captain Jules was making to them. The two
+boats were at no great distance apart.
+
+"I am afraid something is the matter below, Phil," Tom Curtis turned to
+mutter hoarsely. But Phyllis Alden, who had been sitting near him a
+moment before, was no longer there.
+
+Phyllis believed she saw that Philip Holt was only pretending to pump
+sufficient air down to Madge. She may have been wrong. Who could ever
+tell? But Phil knew there was no time to discuss the matter. One minute,
+two minutes, five or ten--Phil did not know how long a diver at the
+bottom of the water can be shut off from his supply of fresh air and
+live. She did not mean to wait, to ask questions, or to lose time. Phil
+made a flying leap from the skiff that held her to the one in which
+Philip Holt sat by the air-pump. She landed in the water, just alongside
+the boat. Quietly, though more quickly than she had ever moved before in
+her life, Phil climbed into the boat and thrust Philip Holt away from the
+air pump. In the minute it had taken her to make her plunge she had seen
+Madge's signal again, but this time the line jerked more feebly than it
+had before.
+
+Phil set the pump to working again; the signal answered from below, "All
+is well!"
+
+The tender had recovered from his attack of faintness and resumed his
+work at Madge's airline.
+
+But Philip Holt sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, his face white
+with anger. What would Phyllis Alden's action suggest but that he was
+trying to suffocate Madge in the water below?
+
+Whether or not Philip Holt meant to stifle Madge Morton he himself never
+really knew. The impulse came to him as he placed his hands on her
+air-pump. It flashed across his mind that it was Madge who had tried to
+injure his prospects with Mrs. Curtis, and who had kept him from going
+down with Captain Jules to search for the pearls that he firmly believed
+would be found at the bottom of the bay. It was while these thoughts
+passed through Philip Holt's mind his pressure on Madge's air-pump had
+wavered. But Phyllis Alden had discovered it. She gave him no opportunity
+either for action or regret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A STRANGE PEARL
+
+
+Madge felt herself in a great fairy world peopled with giants. Every
+thing below the water is magnified a thousandfold. Slowly she went down
+and down! The fishes splashed and tumbled about her, hurrying to get away
+from this strange, new sea-monster that had come into their midst.
+
+The little captain felt no mental sensation except one of wonder and of
+awe; no physical impression save a pressure as of a great weight on her
+head and a roaring of mighty waters in her ears. She no longer had any
+idea of being afraid.
+
+At the first plunge into the water she had shut her eyes, but now, as she
+approached the bottom of the bay, she kept them wide open.
+
+The water was clear as crystal, like the reflection in a mammoth mirror.
+She could see nearly fifty feet ahead of her. Captain Jules walked just
+in front of her, swinging his great body from side to side, peering down
+into the sandy bottom of the bay. Madge discovered that the only way in
+which she could get a view, except the one directly in front of her, was
+by turning her head inside her helmet, to look through her side window
+glasses. The goggles over her eyes gave her just the view that a horse
+has with blinkers.
+
+There were hundreds of things that Madge would have liked to confide to
+Captain Jules. However, for once in her life, she was compelled to hold
+her tongue. Her eyes, her hands, and her feet she could keep busy. Now
+and then she gave a little ejaculation of wonder inside her copper helmet
+at the marvels she saw. No one heard her cry out. Captain Jules wasted no
+time. He was exceedingly business-like. He motioned to Madge just where
+she should go and what she should do, and she obediently followed.
+
+There were long, level flats of sand in the bottom of Delaware Bay, like
+small prairies. Then there were exquisite oases of waving green seaweed,
+gardens of sea flowers and ferns, and hillocks of rocks, with all sorts
+of queer sea animals, crabs, jelly-fish, and devil-fish, scurrying about
+them.
+
+Caught in the moss, encrusted on the rocks, sunken in the yellow sands,
+were opalescent, shining shells and pebbles, each one more beautiful than
+the last. Madge did not realize that if she carried these shells and
+pebbles above the water they would look like ordinary stones. Every now
+and then the young diver would stoop and drop one of them in her netted
+bag with a thrill of excitement.
+
+Again and again Captain Jules had assured Madge that she must not expect
+to find any pearls of much value in Delaware Bay. There were few pearls
+in edible oysters. The beds about Cape May were meant to supply the
+family table, not the family jewels. Of course, it was true, the Captain
+admitted, that a pearl did appear now and then in an ordinary oyster. Yet
+this was an accident and most unlikely to occur.
+
+Madge had really tried not to believe that she was going to find any kind
+of prize in the new world under the water. In spite of all her efforts
+she had been thinking and planning and hoping. Perhaps--perhaps she would
+find a pearl of great price. Then her troubles would be at an end.
+
+All this time Madge had been breathing naturally and comfortably inside
+her helmet as she traveled along the bed of the bay. She was so
+unconscious of any difficulty that she was beginning to believe that she
+was, in truth, a mermaid, and that water, and not air, was her natural
+element. Suddenly she felt a little uneasy, as though the windows of her
+room had been closed for too long a time. It was nothing, she was sure.
+The stifling sensation would pass in another second.
+
+At this moment Captain Jules gazed hard at Madge. He had never forgotten
+his charge for a moment. But all seemed well with her, and the captain
+thought he saw ahead of him something that was well worth investigating.
+He dropped on his knees in the soft mud. With him he had a small hammer
+and a fork, not unlike a gardener's. Shining through some green sea moss
+so soft and fine that it might have been the hair of a water-baby,
+Captain Jules had espied some glittering shells. To his experienced eye
+the glow was that of mother-of-pearl. It is the mother-of-pearl shell
+that usually covers the precious pearl. The old sailor set to work. Madge
+was eagerly watching him, when once again the faint stifling sensation
+swept over her. Surely it was not possible to faint in a diving suit.
+Besides, Madge's heart was beating so furiously with excitement that it
+was small wonder she could not get her breath. She believed that Captain
+Jules was about to discover a wonderful pearl. He had wrenched the shells
+free and was trying to open them. Madge stood some feet away from him,
+quivering with excitement.
+
+"'And the sea shall give up its treasures'," she quoted softly to herself
+as she watched.
+
+The next moment her hands made an involuntary movement in the water. Had
+she been on land her gesture would have meant that she was fighting for
+breath. To her horror she realized that she was slowly suffocating.
+Something must have happened to her air-pump above the water. She was not
+faint from any other cause, but was getting an insufficient supply of
+fresh air.
+
+At this moment Madge proved her mettle. She remembered Captain Jules's
+injunction, "Keep a clear head under the water and there is nothing to
+fear." She knew the signal for more fresh air, and gave two hard, quick
+pulls on her life line. Then she waited. Relief would surely come in a
+moment.
+
+For the first and only time since their descent to the bottom of the bay
+Captain Jules had temporarily neglected Madge. He certainly had not
+expected to find any pearls in so unlikely a place as Delaware Bay; yet
+the shells he held in his hand were most unusual. The thrill of his old
+occupation seized hold of the pearl fisher. His big hands fairly trembled
+with emotion. He felt, rather than saw, Madge jerk her life line twice,
+but it never dawned on him that her signal for more air might fail to be
+answered.
+
+Madge signaled again. A loud buzzing seemed to sound in her ears. Her
+tongue felt thick and swollen. She could not see a foot ahead of her. All
+the dazzling, shimmering beauty of the world under the water had passed
+into blackness. The little captain's eyes were glazing behind the glass
+windows of her helmet. She felt that she must be dying. But she had
+strength to give one more signal. Air! air! How could she ever have
+believed that there was anything in the world so precious as fresh air?
+Madge had a vision of a field of new-mown hay in her old home at "Forest
+House." The wind was blowing through it with a delicious fragrance. Had
+she the strength to pull her life line once again? The water that she
+loved so dearly was to claim her at last. She made a motion to go toward
+Captain Jules, but she had no control of her limbs.
+
+Then Captain Jules became aroused to action. He realized that Madge had
+signaled for air, not once, but several times. This meant that her signal
+had not been answered. The captain had been for too many years a deep-sea
+diver not to guess instantly the girl's condition. The groan inside his
+helmet came from the bottom of his heart. Captain Jules's hands shook. He
+dropped the shells that he believed might contain priceless pearls down
+into the soft sand in the bed of the bay.
+
+It was at this moment that Tom Curtis and Phyllis Alden, as well as the
+captain's boat tenders, caught his confusing signals from below. More
+fresh air was pumped down the tube to Captain Jules, but not to Madge.
+
+Phil's leap and quick work at Madge's air-pump must have taken place not
+more than three minutes afterward, but they were horrible, agonizing
+moments. Madge hardly knew how they passed. Captain Jules suffered the
+regret of a lifetime. How could he have been so unwise as to entrust the
+safety of this girl, whose life was so dear to him, to the perils of a
+diver's experiences? In the few weeks of their acquaintance Madge Morton
+had become all in all to Captain Jules Fontaine.
+
+There was but one thing for Captain Jules to do for his companion. He
+must signal to have her drawn up to the surface of the water again,
+trusting that she would not suffocate for lack of air in her ascent.
+
+Madge was near enough to lay her hand on Captain Jules's arm. Phil's
+relief had come just in time. The life-giving fresh air from the world
+above pressed into her copper helmet. It filled her nose and mouth, it
+poured into her aching lungs. She received new life, new energy. Now she
+was no longer afraid. She did not wish to go above the surface of the
+water. Surely all above was now well. She yearned to continue her
+adventures on the under side of the world.
+
+She it was, not Captain Jules, who dropped down on her hands and knees to
+grope for the captain's lost pearl shells.
+
+But the sand had covered them up forever, or else the water had carried
+them away!
+
+Captain Jules wished to take Madge out of the water immediately, yet he
+yielded for a minute to her disappointment. What treasures had they lost
+when he threw the mother-of-pearl shells away? Neither of them would ever
+know. The old diver looked about in the soft mud, while Madge raked
+furiously near the spot where she thought the sailor had dropped the
+shells. Captain Jules walked on for a little distance. He had seen beyond
+them a tangled mass of other shells and seaweed and it occurred to him
+that the water might have carried his shells into some hidden crevice
+nearby.
+
+But Madge never left her chosen spot. Deeper and deeper she dug. What a
+swirl of mud arose and eddied about her, darkening the clear water in
+which she stood! The little captain's hammer struck against something
+hard. Was it a rock embedded in the sand? Yet a distinct sound rang out,
+as of one metal striking against another!
+
+Madge did not know how she summoned Captain Jules back to her side. She
+was wild with curiosity and excitement. Captain Jules was smiling behind
+his copper mask. The young girl diver had probably found a piece of old
+iron cast off from some ship. Still, she should unearth whatever she had
+discovered so near the dark kingdom of Pluto.
+
+The captain worked with her. Whatever her find might be, it was larger
+and heavier than Captain Jules had expected. They could afford to spend
+no more time with it. It was time for Madge to leave the water.
+
+It is difficult to make an imploring gesture in a diver's suit. Yet,
+somehow, Madge must have managed to do so. For one moment longer the old
+pearl diver relented. The hole that they were digging in the bottom of
+the bay was widening before them. A chunk of what looked like solid iron
+was visible. Then a triangular end came into view. It was rusted until it
+shone like beautiful green enamel. The top was absolutely flat and of
+some depth, as it was so hard to excavate.
+
+The time was growing short. Madge had been under the water as long as was
+safe for any amateur diver. The captain was a man to be obeyed, as she
+knew instinctively. She gave one more dig into the mud about her iron
+treasure. It now became plain, both to her and to Captain Jules, that she
+had found an old iron chest. The captain tugged at it with both his
+great, strong hands. It was strangely heavy. But he managed to lift it in
+his arms.
+
+Straightway he gave the signal to ascend; three sharp tugs at his life
+line. Madge followed suit. But she cast one long backward glance at the
+watery world into which she might never again descend, as slowly,
+steadily, the boat tenders pulled up her long life line. Her feet dangled
+above the sandy bottom of the bay. Now she could see even farther off.
+About forty feet from the rapidly filling hole from which she and the
+captain had extracted the iron chest was a spar of a ship jutting above
+the sand. The little captain may have been wrong, but it looked like the
+very spar on which Tania's dress had caught the day she was so nearly
+drowned. Madge could not tell how far she and Captain Jules had traveled
+on the bottom of the bay, but she knew they had made their descent at a
+place no very great distance from the spot where Roy Dennis's yacht had
+run down their skiff, and Captain Jules had rescued Tania and herself.
+
+Thought travels swifter than anything else in the created world. So
+Madge's thoughts had reached the upper world before she followed them.
+She wondered if the girls would be very sadly disappointed when she
+returned bearing, instead of a costly pearl, nothing but a rusted iron
+box!
+
+Would Phil have better luck when she descended to the depths of the bay?
+What had happened in the outside world since she had disappeared from it
+a long, long time ago?
+
+A flare of blinding sunlight smote across the glass goggles in Madge's
+copper helmet. She felt herself picked up and lifted bodily into a boat.
+Her helmet and corselet were unscrewed. She lay still, smiling faintly as
+the boat made for her friends who crowded, watching, on the pier. Captain
+Jules, bearing the small iron chest, landed a moment later. The little
+captain had been in a new world, into which few men and rarely any women
+have ever entered. She had been out of her human element, a creature of
+the water, not of the air, and it seemed to her that she must have lived
+a whole new lifetime as a deep-sea diver.
+
+Tom Curtis stared anxiously at his watch and smiled into her white face.
+He breathed a sigh of relief and of wonder. Captain Jules Fontaine and
+Madge Morton had been down at the bottom of Delaware Bay exactly thirty
+minutes!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE FAIRY GODMOTHER'S WISH COMES TRUE
+
+
+Captain Jules decided to wait until another day before taking Phyllis
+Alden on the journey from which he and Madge had just returned. The old
+sailor was too deeply thankful to see his first charge safe on land. Poor
+Miss Jenny Ann could do nothing but lean over Madge and cry; the nervous
+strain of waiting while the girl was under the water had been too great.
+Indeed, even the people who, Madge knew, were not in the least interested
+in her, appeared dreadfully upset. Philip Holt's face was very pale and
+his eyes shifted uneasily from Phyllis's to Madge's face.
+
+Phyllis was the most self-possessed of the four girls. She was greatly
+disappointed at the captain's determination to put off the time for her
+diving expedition until a later date. But Phyllis was always unselfish.
+She realized that her chaperon and her friends had had about as much
+anxiety as they could endure in one day. Madge had been under the water,
+and she could not dream of what the others had suffered above, while
+awaiting her return.
+
+Mrs. Curtis put her arms about the little captain and embraced her with
+an affection she had not shown her during the summer.
+
+"My dear," she murmured, "will you ever stop being the most reckless girl
+in the world? What possible good could that wretched diving feat of yours
+do anybody on earth? If my hair weren't already white I am sure it would
+have turned so in the last half-hour. Look at poor Philip Holt. He seems
+as nervous as though you were his own sister."
+
+Madge and Captain Jules had both taken off their heavy diving suits and
+were soon shaking hands with every one on the pier. Even Roy Dennis and
+Mabel Farrar, much as they disliked Madge, could not conceal the fact
+that they thought her extremely plucky.
+
+Captain Jules had laid the iron chest on the ground and for the moment
+they had forgotten it.
+
+It was little Tania who danced up to it and tried to lift it.
+
+"Show us the pearls you found, Madge," Eleanor begged her cousin at this
+instant, her brown eyes twinkling.
+
+The little captain looked crestfallen. "I am afraid we didn't find
+anything of value," she said, trying to pretend that she was not
+disappointed. "I have only some pretty shells and stones that I gathered
+on the bottom of the bay for Tania."
+
+She pulled her sea treasures out of her netted diving bag. Sure enough,
+the water had dried on them and the shells and stones appeared quite dull
+and ugly. There were almost as pretty shells and pebbles to be picked up
+at any place along the Cape May beach.
+
+"Why, Madge!" exclaimed Lillian, before she realized what she was saying,
+"surely, you didn't waste your time in bringing up such silly trifles as
+these?"
+
+Madge shook her head humbly. "We didn't find anything else but this old
+iron chest. Captain Jules, may I take it back to the houseboat with me as
+a souvenir, or do you wish it? Tania, child, you can't lift it, it is too
+heavy."
+
+Tom Curtis brought the chest to Captain Jules. Some of the crowd had
+moved away, now that the diving was over. But a dozen or more strangers
+pressed about the girls and their friends.
+
+"There is something in this little chest, Captain," declared Tom Curtis
+quietly, as he set it down before the captain and Madge. "I could feel
+something roll around in the box as I lifted it."
+
+Captain Jules shook the heavy safe. Something certainly rattled on the
+inside.
+
+There were bits of moss and tiny shells and stones encrusted on the upper
+lid of the box. Deliberately Captain Jules scraped them off with a stick.
+The houseboat party and Tom were beginning to grow impatient. What made
+Captain Jules so slow? Philip Holt, who was standing by Mrs. Curtis's
+side, gazed sneeringly at the operations. He was glad, indeed, that he
+had not risked his life in descending to the bottom of the bay in search
+for pearls, only to bring up a rusty chest.
+
+"The box is fastened tightly; it will have to be broken open," remarked
+Madge indifferently. She was feeling tired, now that the excitement of
+her diving trip was over. She wished to go home to the houseboat. She did
+not wish Captain Jules to guess for an instant how disappointed she was
+that they had found nothing of value on their diving adventure. If only
+the captain had not dropped the shells in which there might have been a
+chance of finding pearls!
+
+Captain Jules had hold of the iron hammer that he used when diving.
+Click! click! click! he struck three times on the lock of the iron safe.
+Like the magic tinder-box, the lid flew open. Tania's long-drawn
+childish, "Oh!" was the only sound that broke the tense and breathless
+stillness that pervaded the group.
+
+A single pearl! The scorned iron chest almost full of shining coins and
+precious stones! There were coins of gold and silver--strange coins that
+no one in the watching crowd had ever seen before. Some of them bore
+dates and inscriptions of English mintings of the early part of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+Of course, it was incredible! No one believed his eyes. A treasure-chest
+unearthed after more than two hundred years? It was impossible!
+
+Yet instantly each one of the girls remembered that the pirates had sunk
+many vessels in Delaware Bay in the latter part of the seventeenth and
+the beginning of the eighteenth century. In those days many wealthy
+English families came over with their servants and their treasure to
+settle in the new country of America.
+
+Phil's book on the history of piracy had recalled this information to the
+girls only ten days before. It was then, when Madge lay with her head
+resting in her hands, looking dreamily out over the waters, that she had
+wondered how anything so remote from her as the story of the early
+American battles with pirate ships could help her to solve her present
+troubles? Yet here, like a miracle before her eyes, lay the answer!
+
+The little captain was the last of the onlookers to know what had
+happened. She was too dazed, perhaps, from her stay under the water.
+
+It was only when Tania flung her eager, thin arms about her beloved Fairy
+Godmother's neck that Madge actually woke up.
+
+"The fairies who live under the water have given you these wonderful
+things," whispered Tania. "I prayed that they would come to see you,
+bringing you all the good gifts that they had."
+
+Captain Jules reached over and set the priceless box before Madge. She
+was encircled by Miss Jenny Ann and her beloved houseboat chums.
+
+"It is all yours, Madge," asserted Captain Jules solemnly. "You found it,
+child. I should never have discovered it but for you."
+
+Madge shook her red-brown head. "Captain Jules, that chest is far more
+yours than it is mine. I should never have gone down under the water but
+for you. If Phil had only dived first, instead of me, she would have
+found it, I won't have any of the money or the jewelry unless I can share
+it with the rest of you."
+
+Then, to Madge's own surprise, she began to cry.
+
+"There, there, little mate, it will be all right," Captain Jules assured
+her quietly. "You've had a bit too much for one day. We don't know the
+value of what we have found just yet, but the old jewelry will make
+pretty trinkets for you girls. We'll see about the rest later on."
+
+Miss Jenny Ann put her arm about Madge on one side. Phil was on the other
+side of her chum.
+
+"We will go home now, dear," said Miss Jenny Ann to Madge. "You are worn
+out from all this excitement."
+
+"I'll look after the girls, Captain," promised Tom Curtis quietly, "then
+I will come back to you." A flash of understanding passed between Captain
+Jules and Tom Curtis. They had both guessed that Madge's iron box of old
+jewelry and coins represented more money than the girls could comprehend,
+and that it was better for the news of the discovery to be kept as quiet
+as possible for the time being.
+
+"You will walk home with me, won't you, Philip?" Mrs. Curtis asked her
+guest. "I am rather tired from the excitement of this most unusual
+morning."
+
+But Philip Holt had forgotten that he wished to keep on the good side of
+his wealthy hostess. His eyes were staring eagerly and greedily at the
+closed iron box which old Captain Jules was guarding. He took a step
+forward, stopped and looked at the little crowd standing near.
+
+"No; I can't go back with you now, Mrs. Curtis," he answered abruptly, "I
+have some important business to transact."
+
+Mrs. Curtis walked away deeply offended. Philip Holt, however, was too
+fully occupied with his own disappointment to note this. A sudden daring
+idea had taken possession of him. Perhaps Madge Morton was not so lucky
+after all. Finding a treasure did not necessarily mean keeping it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MISSING, A FAIRY GODMOTHER
+
+
+Several days after the finding of the treasure-chest experts came down
+from Philadelphia to appraise its value. It was not easy to decide,
+immediately, what market price the old jewels, set in quaintly chased
+gold, would bring. But the least that the coins and stones would be worth
+was ten thousand dollars! It might be more. An extra thousand dollars or
+so was hardly worth considering, when ten thousand would make things turn
+out so beautifully even.
+
+Madge and Captain Jules, Miss Jenny Ann and the other houseboat girls had
+many discussions about Madge's discovery of the iron safe.
+
+The little captain was entirely alone on one side of the argument. The
+others were all against her. Yet she won her point. She continued to
+insist that her wonderful find was purely an accident. How could she ever
+have unearthed a box, lost from a sunken ship, that had probably been
+buried for centuries, if Captain Jules Fontaine had not listened to her
+pleadings and taken her on the wonderful diving trip with him? Though she
+had actually struck the first blow on the piece of iron embedded in the
+bay, she could never have dragged the safe out of the mud, or been able
+to carry it up to the surface, without Captain Jules's assistance.
+
+Madge and the old sailor started their discussion alone. The captain had
+come over to the houseboat, bringing the iron safe with him so that the
+girls might have a better view of its wonders. He had firmly made up his
+mind that Madge must be made to understand that the money the treasure
+would bring was to be all hers. He would not accept one cent of it. Fate
+had been kinder to him than he had hoped in allowing him to guide Madge
+to the discovery of her fortune.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars!" exclaimed Madge ecstatically, when the old sailor
+reported the news to her. "It's the most wonderful thing I ever heard of
+in my life. I didn't dream it was worth so much money. Will you please
+lend me a piece of paper and a pencil, Captain Jules. I never have been
+clever at arithmetic." Madge knitted her brows thoughtfully. "Ten
+thousand dollars divided by two means five thousand dollars for you and
+the same sum for us."
+
+The captain cleared his throat. "What's the rest of the arithmetic?" he
+demanded gruffly. "I don't think much of that first division."
+
+But Madge was hardly listening. She was biting the end of her pencil.
+"Six doesn't go into five thousand just evenly," she replied
+thoughtfully, "but with fractions I suppose we can manage. You see that
+will be eight hundred and thirty-three dollars and something over for
+Miss Jenny Ann to put in bank to take care of her if she ever gets sick,
+or has to stop teaching; and the same sum will pay for Phil's first year
+at college and for Eleanor's graduating at Miss Tolliver's, so uncle
+won't have to worry over that any more. Then my little Fairy Godmother
+can go to some beautiful school in the country, and not be shut up in a
+horrid home with a capital 'H,' which is what Philip Holt has persuaded
+Mrs. Curtis ought to be done with her. And Lillian can save her money to
+buy pretty clothes, because she is not as poor as the rest of us and
+dearly loves nice things, and----" Madge's speech ended from lack of
+breath.
+
+The captain rubbed his rough chin reflectively. "Oh! I see," he nodded,
+"I am to get half of the money and you are to get a sixth of a half. Is
+that it?"
+
+[Illustration: Madge and Captain Jules Started Their Discussion Alone.]
+
+Madge lowered her voice to a whisper. "Dear Captain Jules," she said in a
+wheedling tone, "you'll help me, won't you? The girls and Miss Jenny Ann
+declare positively that they won't accept a single dollar of the money. I
+shall be the most miserable girl in the world if they don't. Why, we four
+girls and Miss Jenny Ann have shared everything in common, our
+misfortunes and our good fortunes, since we started out together. If any
+one of the other girls had happened to discover the treasure instead of
+me, she would certainly have divided it with the others. Phil, Lillian,
+Eleanor and Miss Jenny Ann don't even dare to deny it. So they simply
+must give in to me about it."
+
+"Well," continued the captain, "I am yet to be told what Madge Morton
+means to do with the one-sixth of one-half of her wealth when it finally
+gets round to her."
+
+The little captain's eyes shone, though her face sobered. "I am not going
+to college with Phil, though I hate to be parted from her," she replied.
+"Somehow, I think I am not exactly meant for a college girl. I believe I
+will just advertise in all the papers in the world for my father. Then,
+if he is alive, I shall surely find him. With whatever money is left I
+shall go to him. If he is poor, I will manage to take care of him in some
+way," ended Madge confidently.
+
+"You will, eh?" returned Captain Jules gruffly. "It seems to me, my girl,
+that this is a pretty position you have mapped out for me. I am to take
+half of our find--nice, selfish old codger that I am--while you divide
+yours with your friends. I am not going to take a cent of that money, so
+you can just do your sums over again."
+
+It was at this point that Madge called Miss Jenny Ann and the other
+houseboat girls into the discussion. It ended with the captain's agreeing
+to take one-seventh of the money, if all the others would follow suit.
+
+"Because, if you don't," declared Madge in her usual impetuous fashion,
+"I shall just throw this chest of money and jewelry right overboard and
+it can go down to the bottom of the bay and stay there, for all I care."
+
+Captain Jules remained to dinner on the houseboat that evening. After
+dinner the girls proceeded to adorn themselves with the old sets of
+jewelry found in the safe. Madge wore the pearls because, she insisted,
+they were her special jewels, and she had gone down to the bottom of the
+bay to find them. Phil was more fascinated with some old-fashioned
+garnets, Lillian with a big, golden topaz pin, and Eleanor with some
+turquoises that had turned a curious greenish color from old age.
+
+It was well after ten o'clock when the captain announced that he must set
+out for home. Tom Curtis had been spending the evening on the houseboat
+with the girls, but he had gone home an hour before to join his mother
+and her guest, Philip Holt. Before going away the captain concluded that
+it would be best for him to leave the iron safe of coins and precious
+stones on the houseboat for the night. It was too late for him to carry
+it back to "The Anchorage" alone. As no one but Tom knew of its being on
+the houseboat, the valuables could be in no possible danger. The captain
+would call some time within the next day or so to take the iron box to a
+safety deposit vault in the town of Cape May.
+
+Together Miss Jenny Ann and the captain hid the precious chest in a small
+drawer in the sideboard built into the wall of the little dining room
+cabin of the houseboat. They locked this drawer carefully and Miss Jenny
+Ann hid the key under her pillow without speaking of it to any one.
+
+In spite of these precautions no one on the houseboat dreamed of any
+possible danger to the safety of their newly-found prize. Remember, no
+one knew of its being on the houseboat save Tom Curtis and Captain Jules.
+Up to to-night Captain Jules had been guarding the treasure at his house
+up the bay. No one had been allowed to see it since the famous day of its
+discovery, except the experts who had come down from Philadelphia to give
+some idea of the value of Madge's remarkable find.
+
+Little Tania was in the habit of sleeping in the dining room of the
+houseboat on a cot which Miss Jenny Ann prepared for her each night. She
+went to bed earlier than the other girls, so in order not to disturb her,
+she was stowed away in there instead of occupying one of the berths in
+the two staterooms. Soon after the captain's departure Miss Jenny Ann
+tucked Tania safely in bed. She closed the door of the dining room that
+led out on the cabin deck and also the door that connected with the
+stateroom occupied by Madge and Phil. The cabin of the "Merry Maid" was a
+square divided into four rooms, and Miss Jenny Ann's bedroom did not open
+directly into the dining room.
+
+It was a dark night and a strangely still one. The weather was unusually
+warm and close for Cape May. Over the flat marshes and islands the heat
+was oppressive. The residents of the summer cottages left their doors and
+windows open, hoping that a stray breeze might spring up during the night
+to refresh them. No one seemed to have any fear of burglars.
+
+On the "Merry Maid" the night was so still and cloudy that the girls sat
+up for an hour after Captain Jules left them, talking over their
+wonderful good fortune. They were almost asleep before they tumbled into
+their berths. Once there, they slept soundly all night long. Nothing
+apparently happened to disturb them, but Madge, who was the lightest
+sleeper in the party, did half-waken at one time during the night. She
+thought she heard Tania cry out. It was a peculiar cry and was not
+repeated. She knew that Tania was given to dreaming. Almost every night
+the child made some kind of sound in her sleep. Madge sat up in bed and
+listened, but hearing no further sound, she went fast asleep again
+without a thought of anxiety.
+
+Miss Jenny Ann was the first to open her eyes the next morning. It must
+have been as late as seven o'clock, for the sun was shining brilliantly.
+She slipped on her wrapper and went into the kitchen to start the fire. A
+few moments later she went into the dining room to call Tania and to help
+the child to dress. But the dining room door on to the cabin deck was
+open. Tania's bedclothes were in a heap on the floor. The child had
+disappeared.
+
+Miss Jenny Ann was not in the least uneasy or annoyed. She knew that
+Tania had a way of creeping in Madge's bed in the early mornings and of
+snuggling close to her. Miss Jenny Ann tip-toed softly into Madge's and
+Phil's stateroom. There was no dark head with its straight, short black
+hair and quaint, elfish face pressed close against Madge's lovely auburn
+one. Madge was slumbering peacefully. Miss Jenny Ann peered into the
+upper berth. Phil was alone and had not stirred.
+
+Tania was such a queer, wild little thing! Miss Jenny Ann felt annoyed.
+Perhaps Tania had awakened and slipped off the boat without telling any
+of them. She had solemnly promised never to run away again, but she might
+have broken her word. Miss Jenny Ann explored the houseboat decks. She
+called the child's name softly once or twice so as not to disturb the
+other girls. There was no answer. She went back into the cabin dining
+room. Neatly folded on the chair, where Miss Jenny Ann herself had placed
+them the night before, were Tania's clothes. The child could hardly have
+run away in her little white nightgown.
+
+When the girls finally wakened Madge was the only one of them who was
+alarmed at first. She recalled Tania's strange cry in the night. She
+wondered if it could have been possible that she had heard a sound before
+the little girl cried out. But she could not decide. She would not
+believe, however, that Tania had forgotten her promise and gone away
+again without permission.
+
+As soon as Eleanor and Lillian were dressed they went ashore and walked
+up and down near the houseboat, calling aloud for Tania. Phyllis was the
+most composed of the party. She had two small twin sisters of her own and
+knew that children were in the habit of creating just such unnecessary
+excitements. Still, it was better to look for a lost child before she had
+had time to wander too far away.
+
+"Madge," suggested Phil quietly, "don't be so frightened about Tania. I
+have an idea the child has walked off the houseboat in her sleep. She
+must have done so, for the dining room door is unlocked from the inside.
+Our door on to the deck was not locked, but Tania's was, because Miss
+Jenny Ann recalls having locked it herself. She came through our room
+when she joined us outdoors after putting Tania to bed. You and I had
+better go up at once to find Tom Curtis. Dear old Tom is such a comfort!
+He will help us search for Tania. Then, if it is necessary, he will ask
+the Cape May authorities to have the police on the lookout for her. If
+Tania has wandered off in her sleep, the poor little thing will be
+terrified when she wakes up and finds herself in a strange place. Surely,
+some one will take her in and care for her until we find her."
+
+Madge and Phil were wonderfully glad to find Tom Curtis up and alone on
+his front veranda. He had just come in from a swim. He seemed so strong,
+clean, and fine after his morning's dip in the ocean that his two girl
+friends were immediately reassured. Tom would tell them just what had
+better be done to find Tania.
+
+"Mrs. Curtis's and Philip Holt's window blinds are still down, thank
+goodness!" whispered Madge to Phil, "so I suppose they are both asleep.
+Let us not tell them anything about Tania's disappearance. They would
+just put it down to naughtiness in her, and that would make me awfully
+cross."
+
+Tom Curtis felt perfectly sure that he would soon run across the lost
+Tania. So he left word for his mother that he had gone to the houseboat
+and that she was not to expect him until she saw him again.
+
+For two hours Tom and the houseboat party continued the hunt for the lost
+child without calling in assistance. Then Madge and Tom went to the town
+authorities of Cape May. The police investigated the city and the houses
+in the nearby seaside resort without finding the least clue to Tania.
+Toward the close of the long day Tom Curtis began to fear that Tania had
+fallen into the water. Cape May is only a strip of land between the great
+ocean and the bay, and the land is broken into many small islands nearly
+surrounded by salt water and marshes.
+
+Tom managed to get the girls safely out of the way; then, with Miss Jenny
+Ann's permission, he had the water near the houseboat thoroughly dredged.
+But Tania's little body was not found for the second time down in the
+bottom of the bay. It was not possible to have all the water in the
+neighborhood dragged in a single day, so Tom said nothing of his fears to
+his anxious friends.
+
+It was late in the evening. Miss Jenny Ann had prepared dinner for the
+weary and disheartened girls. She had snowy biscuit, broiled ham, roasted
+potatoes, milk, and honey, the very things her charges usually loved. Tom
+Curtis felt impelled to go back home. All that day he had seen nothing of
+his mother or of their visitor, Philip Holt, and Tom was afraid they
+would begin to wonder what had become of him.
+
+Madge caught Tom by the sleeve and looked at him with beseeching eyes.
+"Please don't go, Tom," she begged, with a catch in her voice, "I am sure
+your mother won't mind. She has Mr. Holt with her, and I can't bear to
+see you go."
+
+Tom and Madge were near the gangplank of the houseboat and Tom was trying
+to make up his mind what he should do, when he and Madge caught sight of
+a gray-clad figure walking toward them through the twilight mists.
+
+"It's Mother," explained Tom in a relieved tone. "Now I can make it all
+right with her."
+
+"And that horrid Philip Holt isn't along," declared Madge delightedly,
+"so I can tell her about poor little Tania."
+
+Mrs. Curtis caught Madge, who had run out to meet her, by the hand. "My
+dear child, what is the matter with you?" the older woman asked
+immediately. "Even in this half-light I can see that your face is pale as
+death and you look utterly worn out. If one of you is ill, why have you
+not sent for me?"
+
+When Madge faltered out her story of the lost Tania Mrs. Curtis hugged
+her to her in the old sympathetic way that the little captain knew and
+loved.
+
+"I am so sorry, dear," soothed Mrs. Curtis, "but I am sure than Tom and
+Philip Holt will find her. I suppose that is why they have both been away
+all day."
+
+"Philip Holt!" exclaimed Tom in surprise. "He hasn't been with us. I
+thought he was at home with you."
+
+Mrs. Curtis shook her head indifferently. "No; he hasn't been at the
+cottage all day. Have any of you thought to send word to Captain Jules to
+ask him about Tania? It may be that the child is with him. In any event,
+I know Captain Jules would give us good advice."
+
+"Bully for you, Mother!" cried Tom, glad to catch a straw as he saw the
+shadow on Madge's face lighten. "As soon as I have had a bite of supper
+with the girls I'll get hold of a boat and go after the captain."
+
+Tom did not have to make his journey up the bay to "The Anchorage" that
+night. While he and his mother were at supper with the girls they heard
+the sound of Captain Jules's voice calling to them over the water. He had
+to come ashore lower down the bay, where the water was deeper than it was
+near the houseboat, but he always hallooed as he approached.
+
+"O Jenny Ann!" faltered Madge, trembling like a leaf, "it is our captain.
+Perhaps he has brought Tania back with him. I--I--hope nothing dreadful
+has happened to her."
+
+Without a word Tom fled off the houseboat. A moment later he espied
+Captain Jules coming toward him, alone!
+
+"Halloo, son!" called out Captain Jules cheerfully. "Glad to know that
+you are down here with the girls. Funny thing, but I've had these girls
+on my mind all day. It seemed to me that they needed me, and I couldn't
+go to bed without finding out that everything was well with them. What's
+wrong?" Captain Jules had caught a fleeting glimpse of Tom's harassed
+face. "Is it--is it Madge?" he asked anxiously. "Is anything the matter
+with my girl?"
+
+Tom shook his head reassuringly. It took very few words to make the
+captain understand that the trouble was over Tania and not Madge.
+
+When, a moment later, the captain went aboard the "Merry Maid" he was
+able to smile bravely at the discouraged women.
+
+"Here, here!" he cried gruffly, while Madge clung to one of his horny
+hands for support and Eleanor to the other, "what is all this nonsense I
+hear? Tania is not really lost, of course. I'll bet you we find the
+little witch in no time. She has just gone off somewhere in these New
+Jersey woods to join the fairies she talks so much about. They are sure
+to take good care of her. We can't do much more looking for her to-night,
+but I'll find her first thing in the morning."
+
+Both Captain Jules and Mrs. Curtis insisted that the girls and Miss Jenny
+Ann go early to bed. Just as Captain Jules was saying good night it
+occurred to Miss Jenny Ann that she would rather turn over to the old
+sailor the box of coins and jewelry. While Tania was lost there would be
+so many persons in and out of the houseboat that Miss Jenny Ann feared
+something might happen to the valuables.
+
+She went to the drawer in the sideboard in the saloon cabin without
+thinking of the key under her pillow, and took hold of the knob. To her
+surprise the drawer opened readily. There was no iron safe inside it.
+Miss Jenny Ann ran to her bed and felt under her pillow. The key was
+still there as though it had never been disturbed.
+
+Captain Jules and Tom decided that the simple lock to the houseboat
+sideboard had been easily broken open. When, or how, or by whom, nobody
+knew, but it was certain that the jewels and money were gone. Fortune,
+the fickle jade, who had brought the houseboat girls such good luck only
+a short time before, had now cruelly stolen it away from them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE WICKED GENII
+
+
+Tania had been aroused in the night by seeing a dark figure standing with
+his back to her only a few feet from her bed. Involuntarily the child
+stirred. In that instant a black-masked face turned toward her and Tania
+gave the single, terrified scream that Madge had heard. Before Tania
+could call out again, a handkerchief was tied so closely around her mouth
+that she could make no further sound.
+
+A moment later the mysterious, sinister visitor picked the child up in
+his arms and bore her swiftly and quietly away from the shelter of the
+houseboat and her beloved friends. The little girl was very slender, yet
+her abductor staggered as he walked. He had something besides Tania that
+he was carrying.
+
+About a quarter of a mile from the houseboat Tania was dumped into the
+rear end of an automobile and covered with a heavy steamer blanket. Then
+the automobile started off through the night, going faster and faster, it
+seemed to her, with each hour of darkness that remained.
+
+At times the little prisoner slept. When she awakened she cried softly to
+herself, wondering who had stolen away with her and what was now to
+become of her. But Tania was only a child of the streets and she had been
+reared in a harder school than other happier children, so she made no
+effort to cry out or escape. She knew there was no one near to hear her,
+and the motor car was moving so swiftly that she could not possibly
+escape from it.
+
+Tania and her unknown companion must have ridden all night. Evidently the
+driver of the car had not cared about the roads. He had pushed through
+heavy sand and ploughed over deep holes regardless of his machine. Speed
+was the only thing he thought of.
+
+By and by the automobile stopped, after a particularly bad piece of
+traveling. The driver got down, lifted Tania, still wrapped in her
+blanket, in his arms and carried her inside a house. The child first saw
+the light in an old room, up several flights of steps, which was drearier
+and more miserable than anything she had ever beheld in her life in the
+tenements. It was big and mouldy, and dark with cobwebs swinging like
+dusty curtains over the windows that had not been washed for years. The
+windows looked out over a swamp that was thick with old trees.
+
+But Tania saw none of these things when the blanket was first lifted from
+her head. She gave a gasp of fright and horror. For the first time she
+now realized that her captor was her childhood's enemy and evil genius,
+Philip Holt.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a long-drawn sigh that was almost a sob, "it is
+_you_! Why have you brought me here? What have I done?" Then a look of
+unearthly wisdom came into Tania's solemn, black eyes. She continued to
+stare at the young man so silently and gravely that Philip Holt's blonde
+face twitched with nervousness.
+
+"Didn't you recognize me before?" he asked fiercely. "You were quite
+likely to shriek out in the night and spoil everything, so I had to carry
+you off with me, little nuisance that you are! You can just make up your
+mind, young woman, that you will stay right here in this room until I can
+take you to that nice institution for bad children that I have been
+telling you about for such a long time. You'll never see your houseboat
+friends again."
+
+Tania made no answer, and Philip Holt left her sitting on the floor of
+the gloomy room wide-eyed and silent.
+
+For three days Tania stayed alone in that cheerless room. She saw no one
+but an old, half-foolish man who came to her three times a day to bring
+her food. He gave Tania a few rough garments to dress herself in and
+treated the little prisoner kindly, but Tania found it was quite useless
+to ask the old man questions. She was a wise, silent child, with
+considerable knowledge of life, and she understood that there was nothing
+to be gained by talking to her jailer, who would now and then grin
+foolishly and tell her that she was to be good and everything would soon
+be all right. Her nice, kind brother was going to take her away to school
+as soon as he could. The wicked people who had been trying to steal her
+away from her own brother should never find her if her brother could help
+it.
+
+So the long nights passed and the longer days, and little Tania would
+have been very miserable indeed except for her fairies and her dreams. It
+is never possible to be unhappy all the time, if you own a dream world of
+your own. Still, Tania found it much harder to pretend things, now that
+she had tasted real happiness with her houseboat girls, than she had when
+she lived with old Sal. It wasn't much fun to play at being an enchanted
+princess when you knew what it was to feel like a really happy little
+girl. And no one would care to be taken away to the most wonderful castle
+in fairyland if she had to leave the darling houseboat and Madge and Miss
+Jenny Ann and the other girls behind.
+
+So all through the daylight Tania sat with her small, pale face pressed
+against the dirty window pane, waiting for Madge to come and find her.
+She even hoped that a stranger might walk along close enough to the house
+for her to call for aid. But a dreary rain set in and all the countryside
+near Tania's prison house looked desolate. More than anything Tania
+feared the return of Philip Holt. Once he got hold of her again, she knew
+he would fulfill his threats.
+
+During this dreadful time Tania had no human companion, but she was not
+like other children. She was part little girl and the rest of her an elf
+or a fay. The trees, the birds, and flowers were almost as real to her as
+human beings. For, until Madge and Eleanor had found her dancing on the
+New York City street corner, she had never had anybody to be kind to her,
+or whom she could love.
+
+Just outside Tania's window there was a tall old cedar tree. Its long
+arms reached quite up to her window sill, and when the wind blew it used
+to wave her its greetings. Inside the comfortable branches of the tree
+there was a regular apartment house of birds, the nests rising one above
+the other to the topmost limbs.
+
+Tania held long conversations with these birds in the mornings and in the
+late afternoons. She told them all her troubles, and how very much she
+would like to get away from the place where she was now staying. However,
+the birds were great gad-abouts during the day, and Tania could hardly
+blame them.
+
+There was one fat, fatherly robin that became Tania's particular friend.
+He used to hop about near her window and nod and chirp to her as though
+to reassure her. "Your friends will come for you to-day, I am quite sure
+of it," he used to say, until one day Tania really spoke aloud to him and
+was startled at the sound of her own voice.
+
+"I don't believe you are a robin at all," she announced. "I just believe
+you are a nice, fat father of a whole lot of funny little boys and girls.
+I believe you are enchanted, like me. Oh, dear! I was just beginning to
+believe that I wasn't a fairy after all but a real little girl with
+pretty clothes and friends to kiss me good night." Tania sighed. "I
+suppose I must be a fairy princess after all, for if I was a real little
+girl no one would have cast another wicked spell over me and shut me up
+in this dungeon in the woods, which is a whole lot worse than living with
+old Sal."
+
+Yet playing and pretending, and, worse than anything, waiting, grew very
+tiresome to Tania. On the morning of the fourth day of her imprisonment
+Tania awoke with a start. Something had knocked on her window pane. It
+was only the old cedar tree, and Tania turned over in bed with a sob. But
+the tapping went on. She got up and went to her window. Quick as a flash
+Tania made up her mind to run away. Why had she never thought of it
+before? It was true, her bedroom door was always locked, but here were
+the branches of the cedar tree reaching close up to her window. Really,
+this morning they seemed to speak quite distinctly to Tania:
+
+"Why in the world don't you come to me? I shall hold you quite safe! You
+can climb down through all my arms to the warm earth and then run away to
+your friends."
+
+It was just after dawn. The pink sky was showing against the earlier
+grayness when Tania slipped into her coarse clothes and, like a small
+elf, crept out of her window into the friendly branches of the old tree.
+She was silent and swift as a squirrel as she clambered down. But she
+need not have feared. No one in the lonely country place was awake but
+the child.
+
+Once on the ground, Tania ran on and on, without thinking where she was
+going. She only wished to get far away from the dreary house where Philip
+Holt had hidden her. There was a thick woods about a mile or so from
+Tania's starting place. No one would find her there. Once she was through
+it Tania hoped to find a town, or at least a farm, where she could ask
+for help. In spite of her queer, unchildlike ways, Tania knew enough to
+understand that if she could only find some one to telegraph to her
+friends they would soon come to her.
+
+But the forest through which Tania hoped to pass was a dreadful cedar
+swamp, and in trying to cross it Tania wandered far into it and found
+herself hopelessly lost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A BOW OF SCARLET RIBBON
+
+
+In the three days that had passed since the disappearance of Tania from
+the houseboat everything that was possible had been done to discover her
+whereabouts.
+
+It never occurred to Tom or to Mrs. Curtis to connect Philip Holt's odd
+behavior with the lost Tania or the vanished treasure box. True, he had
+not been seen for the past three days, but Mrs. Curtis had received a
+note from him the day after his disappearance from her house, saying that
+he had been unexpectedly called away on very important business so early
+in the morning that he had not wished to awaken her, but he had left word
+with the servants and he hoped that they had explained matters to her.
+
+Mrs. Curtis's maids and butler insisted that Mr. Holt had given them no
+message. They had not seen or heard him go. So, as Mrs. Curtis did not
+regard Philip Holt's withdrawal as of any importance, she gave very
+little thought to it.
+
+Madge Morton, however, had a different idea. She laid Tania's
+disappearance at Philip Holt's door. She, therefore, determined to take
+Tom Curtis into her confidence, but to ask him not to betray their
+suspicions of Philip Holt to Mrs. Curtis until they had better proof of
+the young man's guilt. Madge had never told even Tom that she had once
+overheard Philip Holt reveal his real identity, nor how much she had
+guessed of the young man's true character from Tania's unconscious and
+frightened reports of him.
+
+Tom at first was indignant with Madge, not because she and the other
+girls believed that Philip Holt had stolen both their little friend and
+their new-found wealth, but because she had not sooner shared her
+suspicion of his mother's guest with him. Tom had never liked Philip, so
+it was easy for him to think the worst of the goody-goody young man.
+
+Without a word to Mrs. Curtis, Tom and the houseboat girls set to work to
+trace Philip Holt, believing that once he was overtaken Tania and the
+stolen treasure would be accounted for.
+
+It was not easy work. Philip Holt had not been a hypocrite all his life
+without knowing how to play the game of deception. A detective sent to
+New York City to talk to old Sal had nothing worth while to report. The
+woman declared positively that Philip was no connection of hers; that she
+had neither seen nor heard of the young man lately. As for Tania, Sal had
+truly not set eyes on her from the day that Madge had taken the little
+one under her protection.
+
+Philip Holt knew well enough that his mother would be questioned about
+his disappearance. He believed that Tania had told Madge his true
+history. So old Sal was prepared with her story when the detective
+interviewed her. Yet it was curious that the Cape May police were unable
+to find out in what manner the young man had left the town. Inquiries at
+the railroad stations, livery stables, and garages gave no clue to him.
+
+The houseboat girls were in despair. Madge neither ate nor slept. She
+felt particularly responsible for Tania, as the child had been her
+special charge and protege. Madge had been deeply grieved when her
+friend, David Brewster, had been falsely accused of a crime in their
+previous houseboat holiday, when they had spent a part of their time with
+Mr. and Mrs. Preston in Virginia; but that sorrow was as nothing to this,
+for David was almost a grown boy and able to look after himself, while
+Tania was little more than a baby. When no news came of either Philip
+Holt or Tania, Madge began to believe that Philip Holt had accomplished
+his design. He had managed to shut Tania up in some kind of dreadful
+institution. The little captain did not believe that they would ever find
+the child, and was so unhappy over the loss of her Fairy Godmother that
+she lost her usual power to act.
+
+Phyllis Alden, however, was wide awake and on the alert. She knew that it
+was not possible for Philip Holt to leave Cape May without some one's
+assistance. Some one must know how and when he had disappeared. The whole
+point was to find that person.
+
+Phil thought over the matter for some time. Then she quietly telephoned
+to Ethel Swann and asked her to arrange something for her. She made an
+appointment to call on Ethel the same afternoon, and she and Lillian
+walked over to the Swann cottage together. It seemed strange to Madge
+that her two friends could have the heart for making calls, but, as there
+was absolutely nothing for them to do save to wait for news of Tania that
+did not come, she said nothing save that she did not feel well enough to
+accompany them.
+
+As Lillian and Phyllis Alden approached the Swann summer cottage they saw
+that Ethel had with her on the veranda the two young people who had been
+most unfriendly to them during their stay at Cape May, Roy Dennis and
+Mabel Farrar.
+
+Roy Dennis got up hurriedly. His face flushed a dull red, and he began
+backing down the veranda steps, explaining to Ethel that he must be off
+at once.
+
+Phyllis Alden was always direct. Before Roy Dennis could get away from
+her she walked directly up to him, and looking him squarely in the eyes
+said quietly: "Mr. Dennis, please don't go away before I have a chance to
+speak to you. It seems absurd to me for us to be such enemies, simply
+because something happened between us in the beginning of the summer that
+wasn't very agreeable. I wished to ask you a question, so I asked Ethel
+to arrange this meeting between us this afternoon."
+
+"What do you wish to ask me?" he returned awkwardly.
+
+Phil plunged directly into her subject. "Weren't you and Philip Holt
+great friends while he was Mrs. Curtis's guest?" she asked.
+
+Roy Dennis looked uncomfortable. "We were fairly good friends, but not
+pals," he assured Phil.
+
+"But you, perhaps, know him well enough to have him tell you where he was
+going when he left Mrs. Curtis's," continued Phil in a calmly assured
+tone. "Mrs. Curtis has not received a letter from him since he left here,
+so she does not know just where he is. We girls on the houseboat would
+also like very much to know what has become of Mr. Holt."
+
+"Why?" demanded Roy Dennis sharply.
+
+Phyllis determined to be perfectly frank. "I will tell you my reason for
+asking you that question," she began. "You may not know it, but our
+little friend, Tania, disappeared from Cape May the very same day that
+Philip Holt left the Cape. We all knew that Mr. Holt had known Tania for
+a number of years before we met her. He thought that the child ought to
+be shut up in some kind of an institution, but Miss Morton wished to put
+the little girl in a school. So it may just be barely possible that Mr.
+Holt took Tania away without asking leave of any one." Phil made
+absolutely no reference to the stolen money and jewels in her talk with
+Roy Dennis. If they could run down Philip Holt and Tania the treasure-box
+would be disclosed as a matter of course.
+
+Roy Dennis hesitated for barely a second. Then he remarked to Phil,
+half-admiringly: "You have been frank with me, Miss Alden, and, to tell
+you the truth, I think it is about time that I be equally frank with you.
+I have no idea where Philip Holt now is, but I do know something about
+how he got away from Cape May, and I am beginning to have my suspicions
+that there might have been something 'shady' in his behavior that I did
+not think of at the time. Three nights ago, it must have been about
+eleven o'clock, I was just about ready for bed when Mr. Holt rang me up
+and asked to speak to me alone. He said that he had just had bad news and
+wished to get out of Cape May as soon as possible. He asked me if I would
+lend him my car so that he could drive to a nearby railroad station where
+he could get a train that would take him sooner to the place he wished to
+go. I thought it was rather a strange request and asked him why he didn't
+borrow Tom Curtis's car? He said that Mrs. Curtis had gone to bed and
+that he did not like to disturb her. He and Tom had never been friendly,
+so he did not wish to ask him a favor. Well, I can't say I felt very
+cheerful at letting Philip Holt have the use of my car, but he said that
+he would send it back in a few hours and it would be all right. I got it
+out for him myself and he drove away in it. It didn't come back until
+this morning, and you never saw such a sight in your life, covered with
+mud and the tires almost used up."
+
+Phil nodded sympathetically. "Who brought the car back to you?" she
+asked. "Was it Mr. Holt?"
+
+Roy Dennis shrugged his heavy shoulders. "No, indeed! He sent it back by
+a chap who wouldn't say a word about himself, Holt, or from which
+direction he had come."
+
+"Is the man still in town?" asked Phil, her voice trembling, "and would
+you mind Tom Curtis's asking him some questions? We are so awfully
+anxious."
+
+Roy Dennis rose quickly. "I believe the fellow is around yet, and I'll
+get hold of him and take him to Tom at once. I don't think that Philip
+Holt has had anything to do with the kidnapping of the little girl, but
+his whole behavior looks pretty funny. We will make the chauffeur chap
+tell us where Philip Holt was when he turned over my car to him." Roy was
+off like a flash.
+
+Phyllis and Lillian were making their apologies to Ethel for being
+obliged to hurry off at once to the houseboat when Mabel Farrar took hold
+of Phil's hand. Her usually haughty expression had changed to one of the
+deepest interest. "I am _so_ sorry about the little lost girl," she said.
+"I hope you will soon find her. She is a queer, fascinating little thing.
+I have watched her all summer, and she certainly can dance. I can't
+believe that Philip Holt has actually stolen her, yet I don't know. Roy
+Dennis just told Ethel Swann and me something awfully queer. He says he
+found a bright scarlet ribbon, like a bow that a child would wear in her
+hair, in the bottom of his motor car when the chauffeur brought it back
+to him to-day."
+
+Phil's black eyes flashed. "If I ever needed anything to convince me that
+Philip Holt stole Tania away from us that would do it," she returned
+indignantly. "Little Tania slept every night with her hair tied up with a
+scarlet ribbon so as to keep it out of her eyes. When we find where
+Philip Holt is we shall find Tania, and if I have any say in the matter
+he shall answer to the law for what he has done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE RACE FOR LIFE
+
+
+It took the united efforts of the Cape May police, Tom Curtis, and Roy
+Dennis to make the chauffeur who had come back with Roy's car say where
+he had met Philip Holt, and when Philip had turned over the automobile to
+him to be brought back to Roy.
+
+The chauffeur was frightened; he finally broke down and told the whole
+story. Philip Holt had driven from the farmhouse where he left Tania to
+the nearest village. There he had hired the chauffeur and the man had
+taken Philip within a few miles of New York. In the course of the ride,
+Philip had told the automobile driver the same story about Tania that he
+had told the old man in the tumbled-down farmhouse:
+
+Tania was Philip's sister. He was hiding her from enemies, who wished to
+steal the child away from him. If anybody inquired about the child or
+about him the chauffeur was to say nothing. Philip would pay him
+handsomely for bringing the car back to Cape May.
+
+The reason that Philip Holt had sent back Roy Dennis's automobile was
+because he knew that Roy would put detectives on his track if he failed
+to return it. Besides, it would be far easier for Philip Holt to get away
+with his precious iron safe if he were free of all other entanglements.
+
+It was nearly midnight before the story that the chauffeur told was clear
+to Tom Curtis. The man believed that he knew the very house in which
+Tania was probably concealed. There was no other place like it near the
+town where the chauffeur lived.
+
+Tom got out his own automobile. The chauffeur would ride with him. They
+would go directly to the old farmhouse. Tania would be there and all
+would soon be well.
+
+It was about nine o'clock the next morning when Tom's thundering knock at
+the rickety farmhouse door brought the foolish old man to open it. As
+soon as Tom mentioned Tania, the old fellow was alarmed. He was stupid
+and poor, but Philip Holt's behavior had begun to look strange even to
+him.
+
+The old farmer was glad to tell Tom Curtis everything he knew. It was all
+right. Tania was safe upstairs. He would take Tom up at once to see her.
+He was just on his way up to take Tania her breakfast. Indeed, the old
+man explained with tears in his eyes, he had not meant to assist in the
+kidnapping of a child. He was only a poor, lonely old fellow and he
+hadn't meant any harm. He had never seen Philip until the moment that the
+young man appeared at his door in his automobile and asked him to look
+after his sister for a few days.
+
+The farmer's story was true. Philip Holt had no idea how he could safely
+dispose of Tania. Quite by accident, as he hurried through the country,
+he had espied the old house. If Tania could be kept hidden there for a
+few days he would then be able to decide what he could do with her.
+
+Tom would have liked to bound up the old stairs three steps at a time to
+Tania's bedroom door. Poor little girl, what she must have suffered in
+the last three days! But Tom's thought was always for Madge. Before he
+followed the farmer to Tania's chamber he wrote a telegram which he made
+the chauffeur take over to the village to send immediately. It read: "All
+is well with Tania. Come at once." And it was addressed to Madge Morton.
+
+Tom was trembling like a girl with sympathy and compassion when he
+finally reached little Tania's bedroom door. He wished Madge or his
+mother were with him. How could he comfort poor Tania for all she had
+suffered?
+
+Tania's jailer unlocked the door and knocked at it softly. The child did
+not answer. He knocked at it again and tried to make his voice friendly.
+"Come to the door, little one," he entreated. "I know you will be glad to
+see who it is that has come to take you back to your home."
+
+Still no answer. Tom could endure the waiting no longer, but flung the
+door wide open. No Tania was to be seen. There was no place to look for
+her in the empty room, which held only a bed and a single chair. But a
+window was open and the arm of the old cedar tree still pressed close
+against the sill. Tom could see that small twigs had been broken off of
+some of the branches. He guessed at once what had happened. Tania had
+climbed down this tree and run away. But Tom felt perfectly sure that he
+would be able to find her before the houseboat party and his mother could
+arrive.
+
+The houseboat girls and Miss Jenny Ann were overjoyed at Tom's telegram.
+Mrs. Curtis was with them when the message came. She was perhaps the
+happiest of them all, although she had never been an especial friend of
+little Tania's. In the last few days her conscience had pricked her a
+little and her warm heart had sorrowed over the missing child.
+
+Yet, up to this very moment, Mrs. Curtis did not know the truth about
+Philip Holt. Just before they started for the train that was to bear them
+to Tom and Tania Madge told Mrs. Curtis that Philip had stolen the child
+from them and that they also believed he had run off with their
+treasure-chest.
+
+Mrs. Curtis listened very quietly to Madge's story. When the little
+captain had finished she asked humbly, "Can you ever forgive me, dear? I
+am an obstinate and spoiled woman. If only I had listened to what you
+told me about Philip this sorrow would never have come to you. Tom also
+warned me that I was being deceived in Philip Holt. But I believed you
+were both prejudiced against him. When we recover Tania I shall try to
+make up to her the wrong I have done her, if it is ever possible."
+
+During the journey Madge and Mrs. Curtis sat hand in hand. Captain Jules
+looked after Miss Jenny Ann, Lillian, Phil and Eleanor, although he was
+almost as excited by Tom's news as they were.
+
+At the country station the chauffeur was waiting to drive Tania's friends
+to the lonely old farmhouse that the child had thought a dungeon.
+
+Tom and Tania would probably be standing in the front yard when the
+automobile arrived. They were not there. The old farmer explained that
+Tom and Tania had gone out together. They would be back in a few minutes.
+To tell the truth, the man did expect them to appear at any time. He
+could not believe that Tania was really lost, although Tom had been
+searching for her since early morning and it was now about four o'clock
+in the afternoon.
+
+For two hours the houseboat party waited. The girls walked up and down
+the rickety farmhouse porch, clinging to Captain Jules. Mrs. Curtis and
+Miss Jenny Ann remained indoors. At dusk Tom returned. He was alone and
+could hardly drag one foot after the other, he was so weary and
+heartsick. To think that after wiring her he had found Tania he must face
+Madge with the dreadful news that the child was lost again!
+
+Two long, weary days passed without news of the lost Tania. The houseboat
+party made the old farmhouse their headquarters while conducting the
+search. At first no one thought to penetrate the cedar swamp where Tania
+had hidden herself, but the idea finally occurred to Tom Curtis, and on
+the third morning he and Captain Jules started out.
+
+All that third anxious day the girls searched the immediate neighborhood
+for Tania. When evening came they gathered sadly in the wretched
+farmhouse, to await the return of Tom Curtis and the old sea captain.
+
+Madge was lying on a rickety lounge, with her face buried in her hands.
+Phyllis was sitting near the door. Mrs. Curtis stood at the window,
+watching for the return of her son. In a further corner of the room, Miss
+Jenny Ann, Lillian and Eleanor were talking softly together.
+
+Suddenly each one of the sad women became aware of the captain's presence
+as his big form darkened the doorway. A ray of light from their single
+oil lamp shone across his weather-beaten face. Phil saw him most
+distinctly and read disaster in his glance. With the unselfish thought of
+others that invariably marks a great nature, she went swiftly across the
+room and dropped on her knees beside Madge.
+
+Madge sprang from her lounge and stumbled across the room toward the old
+sailor. Phil kept close beside her.
+
+"Tania!" whispered Madge faintly, for she too had seen the captain's
+face. "Where is my little Fairy Godmother?"
+
+"We have found Tania, Madge," said Captain Jules gently, "but she is very
+ill. We found her lying under a tree in the swamp, delirious with fever.
+She is almost starved, and she is so frail--that----" The old man's voice
+broke.
+
+"Don't say she is going to die, Captain Jules," implored Mrs. Curtis. "If
+she does, I shall feel that I am responsible. Surely, something can be
+done for her." The proud woman buried her face in her hands.
+
+At that moment Tom entered, bearing in his arms a frail little figure,
+whose thin hands moved incessantly and whose black eyes were bright with
+fever.
+
+With a cry of "Tania, dear little Fairy Godmother, you mustn't, you
+shan't die!" Madge sprang to Tom's side and caught the little, restless
+hands in hers.
+
+For an instant the black eyes looked recognition. "Madge," Tania said
+clearly, "he took me away--the Wicked Genii." Her voice trailed off into
+indistinct muttering.
+
+"She must be rushed to a hospital at once." Captain Jules's calm voice
+roused the sorrowing friends of little Tania to action.
+
+"I'll have my car at the door in ten minutes," declared Tom huskily.
+"Make her as comfortable as you can for the journey."
+
+It was in Captain Jules's strong arms that little Tania made the journey
+to a private sanatorium at Cape May. Madge sat beside the captain, her
+eyes fixed upon the little, dark head that lay against the captain's
+broad shoulder. The strong, magnetic touch of the old sailor seemed to
+quiet the fever-stricken child, and, for the first time since they had
+found her, Tania lay absolutely still in his arms.
+
+Mrs. Curtis occupied the front seat with her son, who drove his car at a
+rate of speed that would have caused a traffic officer to hold up his
+hands in horror. It had been arranged that Tom should return to the
+farmhouse as soon as possible for the rest of the party.
+
+No one of the occupants of the car ever forgot that ride. Once at the
+hospital, no time was lost in caring for Tania. The physician in
+attendance, however, would give them no satisfaction as to Tania's
+condition beyond the admission that it was very serious. Mrs. Curtis
+engaged the most expensive room in the hospital for the child, as well as
+a day and night nurse, and, surrounded by every comfort and the prayers
+of anxious and loving friends, Tania began her fight for life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CAPTAIN JULES LISTENS TO A STORY
+
+
+Tania did not die. After a few days the fever left her, but she was so
+weak and frail that the physician in charge of her case advised Mrs.
+Curtis to allow her to remain in the sanatorium for at least a month.
+When she should have sufficiently recovered Mrs. Curtis had decided to
+take upon herself the responsibility of the child's future. She had been
+a constant visitor in the sickroom and during the long hours she had
+spent with the imaginative little one had grown to love her, while Tania
+in turn adored the stately, white-haired woman and clung to her even as
+she did to Madge, a fact which pleased Mrs. Curtis more than she would
+admit.
+
+Philip Holt was discovered hiding in New York City. The treasure-box was
+in the keeping of old Sal, for Philip had not dared to dispose of the
+coins or the jewelry while the detectives were on the lookout for him.
+Tom Curtis saw that the case against Philip Holt was conducted very
+quietly. The houseboat girls had had enough trouble and excitement. Their
+treasure was restored to them and they had no desire ever to hear Philip
+Holt's name mentioned again.
+
+Tom Curtis was more curious. In questioning Philip, Tom learned that he
+himself was innocently to blame for Philip's crime. Holt recalled to Tom
+the fact that, on returning from the houseboat after spending the evening
+with Captain Jules and his friends, Tom had mentioned to his mother that
+the precious iron safe was on the houseboat, and that if she cared to
+look at the old jewelry again Miss Jenny Ann would unlock the sideboard
+drawer and show it to her the next day. In that moment Philip Holt
+decided on his theft, but he did not expect Tania to thwart him. He had
+slipped through one of the open staterooms into the dining room of the
+houseboat, broken the lock of the sideboard and opened the dining room
+door from the inside to make his escape. Philip Holt believed that in
+taking Tania with him he had accomplished his own downfall.
+
+If he had not stopped to leave the child at the deserted farmhouse, his
+movements would never have been traced.
+
+Madge Morton was a good deal changed by the events of the last few weeks.
+She was so unlike her usual happy, light-hearted and impetuous self that
+Miss Jenny Ann and the houseboat girls were worried about her. They
+ardently wished that Madge would fly into a temper again just to show she
+possessed her old spirit. But she was very gentle and quiet and liked to
+spend a good deal of the time alone.
+
+Miss Jenny Ann consulted with Lillian, Phil and Eleanor. They decided to
+write to David Brewster to ask him to come to spend a few days with them
+on the houseboat. Madge was fond of David and the young man had done such
+fine things for himself in the past year that her friends hoped a sight
+of him would stir her out of her depression.
+
+David was visiting Mrs. Randolph--"Miss Betsey"--in Hartford. He replied
+that he would try to come to Cape May in another week or ten days, but
+please not to mention the fact to Madge until he was more sure of
+coming.
+
+One bright summer afternoon Madge returned alone from a long motor ride
+with Mrs. Curtis and Tom. She found the houseboat entirely deserted and
+remembered that the girls and Miss Jenny Ann had had an engagement to go
+sailing. She curled up on the big steamer chair and gave herself over to
+dreams.
+
+A small boat, pulled by a pair of strong arms, came along close to the
+deck of the "Merry Maid." Madge looked up to see Captain Jules's faithful
+face beaming at her.
+
+"All alone?" he called out cheerfully. "Come for a row with me. I'll get
+you back before tea."
+
+Madge wanted to refuse, but she hardly knew how, so she slipped into the
+prow of the skiff and sat there idly facing him.
+
+Captain Jules frowned at the girl's pale face, which looked even paler
+under the loose twists of her soft auburn hair. Madge looked older and
+more womanly than she had the day the captain first saw her. There was a
+deeper meaning to the upper curves of her full, red lips and a gentler
+sweep to the downward droop of her heavy, black lashes. She was
+fulfilling the promise of the great beauty that was to be hers. It was
+easy to see that she had the charm that would make her life full of
+interest.
+
+Still Captain Jules frowned as though the picture of Madge and her future
+did not please him.
+
+"How much longer are you going to stay at Cape May, Miss Morton?" he
+inquired.
+
+Madge smiled at him. "I don't know anything about 'Miss Morton's' plans,
+but Madge expects to be here for about two weeks more."
+
+Recently the captain had been calling the houseboat girls by their first
+names, as he was with them so constantly in their trouble. But he had now
+decided that he must return to the formality of the beginning of their
+acquaintance. It was best to do so.
+
+"And afterward?" the old sailor questioned, pretending that he was really
+not greatly interested in Madge's reply.
+
+The girl's expression changed. "I don't know," she returned. "Of course,
+Eleanor and I will go back to 'Forest House' for a while. Aren't you glad
+that Uncle has been able to pay off the mortgage? When Nellie and Lillian
+go to Miss Tolliver's and Phil to college I don't know exactly what I
+shall do. Mrs. Curtis and Tom have asked me to make them a visit in New
+York next winter."
+
+The captain frowned again. It was well that Madge was looking over the
+water and not at him, for she never could have told why he looked so
+displeased.
+
+"You and Tom Curtis are very good friends, aren't you, Madge?" said
+Captain Jules abruptly.
+
+Madge smiled to herself. She felt as though she were in the witness box.
+Was her dear old captain trying to cross-examine her?
+
+"Of course, I like Tom better than almost any one else. He is awfully
+good to me. You know you like Tom yourself, so why shouldn't I?" she
+ended wickedly.
+
+"I like him. Certainly I do. He is a fine, upright fellow and his money
+hasn't hurt him a mite, which you can't say of the most of us. But it's a
+different matter with you, young lady, and I want you to go slowly."
+
+"But I am not going at all, Captain," laughed Madge. "It seems to me that
+I want only one thing in the world, and that's to find my father.
+Sometimes I am afraid that perhaps I shall never find my father after
+all!"
+
+Captain Jules coughed and his voice sounded rather husky. It had a
+different note in it from any that Madge had ever heard him use to her.
+
+"Don't play the coward, child," he said sternly; "just because you have
+had one defeat don't go about the world saying you must give up. It may
+be that your father did that once and is sorry for it now. Keep up the
+fight. No matter how many times we may be knocked down in this world, if
+we have the right sort of courage we'll always get up again."
+
+Madge sat up very straight. Her blue eyes flashed back at Captain Jules
+with an expression that he liked to see. "I am not going to give up my
+search," she answered defiantly. "One hears that it is Fate which
+separates two persons. If I find Father, I shall feel that I have won a
+victory over Fate. But I can't help longing to tell my father that I know
+that he is innocent of the fault for which he was disgraced and dismissed
+from the Navy, and that I have the proof in my possession that would make
+it clear to all the world as well as to me."
+
+The old captain gave vent to a sudden exclamation that sounded like a
+groan. His face looked strangely drawn under his coat of tan.
+
+"Are you sick, Captain Jules?" asked Madge hastily. "Do take my place and
+let me have the oars. I am sure I can row you."
+
+Captain Jules smiled back at her. "What made you think I was sick?" he
+asked. "What was that you were telling me? How do you know that your
+father was guiltless of his fault? Why, Captain Robert Morton was one of
+the kindest men that ever trod a deck, and yet he was convicted of
+cruelty to one of his own sailors."
+
+"Captain Jules," continued Madge earnestly, "I would like to tell you the
+whole story if you have time to listen to it. You know I promised long
+ago to tell you. Two years ago, when we were on the second of our
+houseboat excursions, we spent part of our holiday near Old Point
+Comfort. There I met the man who had been my father's superior officer.
+Some unpleasant things happened between his granddaughter and me, and she
+told my father's story at a dinner in order to humiliate me. Long
+afterward her grandfather heard of what his granddaughter had done and he
+made a statement before my friends which cleared my father's name. He
+confessed to having allowed my father to suffer for something he had
+commanded him to do. My father was too great a man to clear himself at
+the expense of his superior officer, so he left the Navy in disgrace and
+has never been heard of since that dreadful time.
+
+"There isn't much more to tell. Only the old admiral has died since I met
+him. However, he left a paper that was sent to me, in which he acquits my
+father of all blame and takes the whole responsibility for my father's
+act on himself. Must we go back home, Captain Jules?" for, at the end of
+her speech, Madge observed that the captain had turned his skiff and was
+rowing directly toward the houseboat. He handed Madge aboard a few
+moments later with the air of one whose mind is elsewhere.
+
+It was impossible for Miss Jenny Ann to persuade the old pearl diver to
+remain to supper. With very few words to any of the party he turned Madge
+over to her friends and rowed hurriedly away toward his home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE VICTORY OVER FATE
+
+
+Early the next morning word was brought by a small boy that Captain Jules
+Fontaine wished Miss Madge Morton to come out to "The Anchorage" alone,
+as he had some important business that he wished to talk over with her.
+
+It was a wonderful morning, all fresh sea breezes and sparkling sunshine.
+Madge had not felt so gay in a long time as when the other houseboat
+girls fell to guessing as to why Captain Jules desired her presence at
+his house.
+
+"He intends to make you his heiress, Madge," insisted Lillian. "Then,
+when you are an old lady, you can come down here to live in the house
+with the roof like three sails, and ride around in the captain's rowboat
+and sailboat and be as happy as a clam."
+
+Madge shook her head. "No such thing, Lillian. I don't believe the
+captain wants me for anything important. He may be going to lecture me,
+as he did yesterday afternoon. At any rate, I'll be back before long.
+Please save some luncheon for me."
+
+Madge was surprised when her boat landed near "The Anchorage" not to see
+Captain Jules in his front yard, with his funny pet monkey on his
+shoulder, waiting to receive her. She began to feel afraid that the
+captain was ill. She had never been inside his house in all their
+acquaintance. But Captain Jules had sent for her, so there was nothing
+for her to do but to march up boldly to his front door and knock.
+
+She lifted the heavy brass knocker, which looked like the head of a
+dolphin, and gave three brisk blows on the closed door.
+
+At first no one answered. The little captain was beginning to think that
+the boy who came to her had made some mistake in his message and that
+Captain Jules had gone out in his fishing boat for the day, when she
+heard some one coming down the passage to open the door for her.
+
+She gave a little start of surprise. A tall, middle-aged man, with a
+single streak of white hair through the brown, was gazing at her
+curiously.
+
+"I would like to see Captain Jules," murmured Madge stupidly, unable to
+at once recover from the surprise of finding that Captain Jules did not
+live alone.
+
+The strange man invited Madge into a tiny parlor which rather surprised
+her. The room was filled with bookshelves, reaching almost up to the top
+of the wall. The young girl had never dreamed that her captain was much
+of a student. The only things that reminded her of Captain Jules were the
+fishnets that were hung at the windows for curtains and the great sprays
+of coral and sponge which decorated the mantelpiece.
+
+The man sat down with his back to the light, so that he could look
+straight into Madge's face.
+
+"Captain Jules will be here after a little, Miss Morton," he said
+gravely, "but he wished me to have a talk with you first."
+
+Madge looked curiously at the unknown man. She could not obtain a very
+distinct view of his face, but she saw that he was very distinguished
+looking, that his eyes seemed quite dark, and that he wore a pointed
+beard. He did not look like an American. At least, there was something in
+his appearance that Madge did not quite understand. It struck her that
+perhaps the man was a lawyer. It could not be that Lillian was right in
+her guess. The treasure in the iron safe had not yet been sold, so it
+might be that this man wished to make some offer for it. Whoever he might
+be the silence was becoming uncomfortable. The little captain decided to
+break it.
+
+"I wonder if you wish to talk to me about the treasure that we found?"
+she inquired, smiling. "I would rather that Captain Jules should be in
+here when we speak of that."
+
+The stranger shook his head. He had a very beautiful voice that in some
+way fascinated the girl.
+
+"No, I don't wish to talk about your treasure, but I do wish to speak of
+something else that was lost and is found again. I don't know that you
+will value it, child, or that it is worth having, but Captain Jules
+thinks you might."
+
+Madge's heart began to beat faster. This strange man had something of
+great importance to tell her. She wondered if she had ever seen him
+anywhere before. There was something in his look that was oddly familiar.
+But why did he look at her so strangely and why did not her old friend
+come to her to end this foolish suspense?
+
+"I have been down here on a visit to Captain Jules a number of times this
+summer and he has always talked of you," went on the fascinating voice.
+"I have longed to see you, but----Miss Morton, Captain Jules Fontaine and
+I knew your father once, long years ago. The news that you had proof of
+his innocence made us very happy last night."
+
+Madge would have liked to bounce up and down in her chair, like an
+impatient child. Only her age restrained her. Why didn't this man tell
+her the thing he was trying to say? What made him hesitate so long?
+
+"Yes, yes," she returned impatiently, "but do you know whether my father
+is alive now? That is the only thing I care about."
+
+Madge gripped both arms of her chair to control herself. She was
+trembling so that she felt that she must be having a chill, though it was
+a warm summer day, for the stranger had risen and was coming toward her,
+his face white and haggard. Then, as he advanced into the brighter light
+of the room, Madge saw that his eyes were very blue.
+
+"Your father isn't dead," the man replied quietly. "He is here in this
+very house, and he cares for you more than all the world in spite of his
+long silence!"
+
+The little captain sprang to her feet, her face flaming. "Captain Jules!
+_He_ is my father? He seemed so old that I didn't realize it. Yet he has
+said so many things to me that might have made me guess he knew
+everything in the world about me. Oh, where is he? My own, own Captain
+Jules?"
+
+The stranger, whose arms had been outstretched toward Madge, let them
+fall at his sides, but Madge had no eyes for him. Captain Jules had
+entered the room and she had flung herself straight into his kindly
+arms.
+
+So, after all, it was Captain Jules Fontaine who had to make it clear to
+Madge that he was not her father, but her father's lifelong and devoted
+friend. The captain told Madge the story while he held both her cold
+hands in his big, rough ones, and the man who was her own father sat
+watching and waiting for her verdict.
+
+Jules Fontaine had never been captain of anything but a sailing schooner,
+but he had been a gunner's mate on Captain Robert Morton's ship. He alone
+knew that Captain Morton had been forced into the fault that he had
+committed by order of his admiral. When Captain Morton was dismissed from
+the United States Naval Service Jules Fontaine, gunner's mate, had
+procured his discharge and followed the fortunes of his captain. The two
+men drifted south to the tropics. Every American vessel is equipped with
+a diving outfit, and some of the men are taught to go down under the
+water to examine the bottoms of the boats. Jules Fontaine liked the
+business of diving. When the two men found themselves in a strange land,
+without any occupations, Captain Jules joined his fortunes with the pearl
+divers and for many years followed their perilous trade.
+
+Captain Morton had a harder time to get along, but after a while he
+studied foreign languages and began to translate books. Five years before
+the two men had come back to the United States. Since that time Captain
+Morton had tried to follow every movement of his daughter. Captain Jules
+wanted his friend to make himself known to his own people, but Robert
+Morton feared that they would never forgive his long silence or his early
+disgrace. He believed that Madge would be happier without knowledge of
+him. It was her own longing for her father, reported by Captain Jules,
+that had impelled Robert Morton at last to reveal himself to her.
+
+Madge could not comprehend all of this at once. She did not even try to
+do so. She realized only that, after being without any parents, she had
+suddenly come into two fathers at the same time, her own father and
+Captain Jules, who was her more than foster father.
+
+With a low, glad cry she went swiftly across the room. She did not try to
+think or to ask questions at that moment about the past, she only flung
+her young arms about her father's neck in a long embrace, feeling that at
+last she had some one in the world who was her very own.
+
+While Madge, her father, and Captain Jules were trying to see how they
+could bear the miracle and shock of their great happiness, a small, dark
+object darted into the room and planted its claws in Madge's hair. It
+pulled and chattered with all its might.
+
+[Illustration: "I am Going to Keep House for You at 'The Anchorage.'"]
+
+The little captain laughed with the tears in her eyes. "It's that
+good-for-nothing monkey!" she exclaimed as she disentangled the
+creature's tiny hands. Then she kissed her father and afterwards Captain
+Jules. "Now I know why this monkey is called Madge, and I am sorry to
+have such a jealous, bad-tempered namesake."
+
+The captain scolded the monkey gently. "Don't you fret about this
+particular namesake. If you only knew all the others you have had! Every
+single pet that two lonely old men could get to stay around the house
+with them we have named for you."
+
+Captain Morton did not go back to the houseboat with his daughter. Madge
+thought she would rather tell her friends of her great happiness alone.
+She wouldn't even let Captain Jules escort her. "You'll both have plenty
+of my society after a while," she argued, "for I am going to come to keep
+house for you at 'The Anchorage' some day."
+
+Madge rowed slowly back to the "Merry Maid." She was thinking over what
+she would say to Miss Jennie Ann and the girls. How should she announce
+to them that her quest was ended, her victory over Fate won?
+
+As she neared the houseboat she saw that her companions were gathered on
+deck, evidently watching for her. Madge rested on her oars and waved one
+hand to them. Four hands waved promptly back to her. A moment more and
+she had come alongside the "Merry Maid." As she clambered on deck she
+cast a swift upward glance at her friends, who, with one accord, were
+looking down on her, their faces full of loving concern.
+
+With a little cry of rapture Madge threw herself into Miss Jenny Ann's
+arms. "O, my dear!" she cried, "I've found him! I've found my father!"
+
+And it was with her faithful mates' arms around her that Madge told the
+strange story of how her quest had ended in the little sitting room of
+"The Anchorage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE LITTLE CAPTAIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY
+
+
+Six weeks had passed since Madge Morton's discovery of her father, and
+many things had happened since then. It was now toward the latter part of
+September, and on a beautiful fall morning one of the busy steamship
+docks in the lower end of New York City was crowded with a gay company of
+people. There were four young girls and three young men, a beautiful
+older woman, with soft, white hair and a look of wonderful distinction; a
+woman of about twenty-six or seven, with a man by her side, who in some
+way suggested the calling of the artist; a white-haired old man and an
+elderly lady, who, in spite of the fact that she answered to the name of
+Mrs. John Randolph, would have been mistaken anywhere for a New England
+spinster. Two men were the only other important members of the group. One
+of them was a distinguished-looking man of about fifty-three with a
+rather sad expression, and the last a bluff old sea captain, whose laugh
+rang out clear and hearty above the sound of the many voices.
+
+In front of the wharf lay a beautiful steam yacht, painted pure white and
+flying a United States flag. The boat was of good size and capable of
+making many knots an hour, but she looked like a little toy ship
+alongside the immense ocean-going steamers that were entering and leaving
+the New York harbor, or waiting their sailing day at their docks.
+
+One of the girls, dressed in a white serge frock and wearing a white felt
+hat, was walking up and down at the back of the crowd, talking to a young
+man.
+
+"David, more than almost anything, I believe I appreciate your coming to
+New York to see me off. It would have been dreadful to go away for a
+whole year, or maybe longer, without having had a glimpse of you. Who
+knows what may happen before I am back again?" The girl's eyes looked
+wistfully about among her friends, although her lips smiled happily.
+
+For a few seconds the young man made no answer. He had never been able to
+talk very readily, now he seemed to wish to think before he spoke.
+
+"I shall be a man, Madge, before you are back again," he replied slowly.
+"I am twenty now, so I shall be ready to vote. But, best of all, I shall
+be through college and ready to go to work." The young man threw back his
+square shoulders. His black eyes looked serious and steadfast. "I am
+going to make you proud of me, Madge. You remember I told you so, that
+day in the Virginia field, when you helped me out of a scrape and started
+me on the right road."
+
+The little captain nodded emphatically. "I am proud of you already,
+David," she declared warmly. "I think it is perfectly wonderful that you
+have been able to take two years' work in college instead of one, beside
+helping Mr. Preston on the farm. You are going to make me dreadfully
+ashamed when I come back, by knowing so much more than I. Phil enters
+Vassar this fall and Tom will graduate at Columbia in another year. I am
+going to try to study on the yacht, but I shall be so busy seeing things
+that I know I won't accomplish very much. Just think, David, I am going
+around the world in our own boat with my father and Captain Jules! Isn't
+it wonderful how one's dreams come true and things turn out even better
+than you expect them to? I believe, if it weren't for leaving my beloved
+houseboat chums and Mrs. Curtis and Tom, and Miss Jenny Ann and you, I
+should be the happiest girl in the world."
+
+"I don't suppose I count for much, Madge," answered David honestly, "but
+I am more grateful to you than you can know for putting me on that list.
+Some day----" The young man hesitated, then his sober face relaxed and a
+brilliant smile lighted it. "It's pretty early for a fellow like me to be
+talking about some day, isn't it, Madge?"
+
+Madge laughed, though she blushed a little and answered nothing.
+
+Just then Phyllis Alden and a young man in a lieutenant's uniform joined
+Madge and David Brewster.
+
+"Lieutenant Jimmy is saying dreadful things, Madge," announced Phil
+mournfully. "He says he is sure you won't come back home in a year.
+You'll stay over in Europe until you are grown up or married, or
+something else, and you'll never be a houseboat girl again!" Phil's voice
+broke.
+
+Lieutenant Jimmy looked uncomfortable. "See here, Miss Alden," he
+protested, "I never said anything as bad as all that. I only said that
+perhaps Captain Morton and Captain Jules would stay longer than a year.
+Almost any one would, if they owned that jolly little yacht."
+
+"I'll wager you, Lieutenant Jimmy, a torpedo boat full of the same kind
+of candy that you sent us at the end of our second houseboat holiday,
+that if you come down to this dock one year from to-day you will see our
+yacht, which Captain Jules has named 'The Little Captain,' paying her
+respects to the Statue of Liberty. Come, let's go and make Father and
+Captain Jules convince him, Phil," proposed Madge, hugging Phyllis close
+to her, as if the thought of being parted from her for so long as one
+year was not to be borne.
+
+"I'll take that wager, Miss Morton," replied Lieutenant Jimmy jokingly,
+"because I would be so awfully glad to have to pay it."
+
+"Madge simply must come back on time, Lieutenant Jimmy," whispered Phil,
+nodding her head mysteriously toward a young woman and a man. "It's a
+state secret, and I ought not to tell you, but Miss Jenny Ann and Mr.
+Theodore Brown, the artist, are to be married a year from this fall. We
+must all be at the wedding. Miss Jenny Ann couldn't possibly be married
+unless every one of the 'Mates of the Merry Maid' were there. If we can
+arrange it, Miss Jenny Ann is going to be married on the houseboat. Won't
+it be the greatest fun?"
+
+For the moment Phil was so cheered at the thought of another houseboat
+reunion, though a whole twelve months off, that she forgot that her best
+beloved Madge was to leave in another half-hour for her trip around the
+world.
+
+Phyllis and Lieutenant Jimmy were standing a little behind Madge. David
+Brewster stopped to talk to Mrs. Curtis and Tom.
+
+At the far end of the dock Captain Jules Fontaine was giving some orders
+to four sailors who formed the entire crew of his new yacht, for the old
+pearl diver was to pilot his own boat, which was to sail under Captain
+Morton's orders. The beautiful little yacht was Captain Jules's own
+property. The old man had made a comfortable fortune in his life in the
+tropics, but he had little use for it, and no desire, except to make
+Madge and her father happy. The little captain's love for the water was
+what endeared her most to the old sailor. He could not be happy away from
+the sea and he couldn't be happy away from Madge and Captain Morton. The
+fortunate girl's two fathers had discussed very seriously Madge's own
+proposal to come to keep house for them at "The Anchorage." Both men knew
+that she could not settle down at their lonely little house far up the
+bay and several miles from the nearest town, which was Cape May.
+Wonderful as the fathers thought Madge, they realized that she was very
+young and must go on with her education. They could not bear to send her
+away to college after all the long years of separation. Captain Jules
+conceived the brilliant idea of educating her by taking her on a trip
+around the world. The old sailor couldn't have borne being cooped up in
+liners and on trains with other people to run them. So Madge's dream of a
+ship all her own, which was to sail "strange countries for to see," had
+come true with her other good fortune.
+
+Leaving her friends for a moment, Madge made her way toward the end of
+the dock to beg Captain Jules to reassure her friends of their return at
+the end of a year. The captain did not notice her approach. Apparently no
+one was looking at her.
+
+On the end of the wharf were gathered three or four small street arabs.
+They had no business on the wharf, which was precisely their reason for
+being there. They were playing behind a number of large boxes and some
+other luggage, and, until Madge approached, no one had observed them.
+They were having a tug-of-war and it was hardly a fair battle. Two
+good-sized urchins were pulling against one other strong fellow and
+another small boy, so thin and pale, with such dark hair and big, black
+eyes that, for the moment, he made Madge think of Tania, who was almost
+well enough to leave the sanatorium and had sent her Fairy Godmother many
+loving messages by Mrs. Curtis. Madge stopped for half a minute to watch
+the boys. In her stateroom were so many boxes of candy she would never be
+able to eat it all in her trip around the world. If she only had some of
+them to give this lively little group of youngsters!
+
+Captain Jules was at one side of the wide wharf with his back toward her
+and the group of boys. His yacht was occupying his entire attention. The
+street urchins did not realize how near they were to the edge of the dock
+because of the pile of luggage that surrounded them.
+
+The tug-of-war grew exciting. Madge clapped her hands softly. She had not
+believed the smallest rascal had so much strength. Suddenly the older
+lad's grip broke. The boys fell back against a pile of trunks that were
+set uneasily one above the other. One of the trunks slid into the water
+and the smallest lad slipped backward after it with an almost noiseless
+splash. His boy companions stared helplessly after him, too frightened to
+make a sound.
+
+Of course, Madge might soon have summoned help. She did think of it for a
+brief instant, for she realized perfectly that her white serge suit would
+look anything but smart if she plunged into the river in it. Then, too,
+her friends, Captain Jules, and her father might be displeased with her.
+But the little lad had given her such an agonized, helpless look of
+appeal as he struck the water! And his eyes were so like Tania's!
+
+Captain Jules turned around at the sound of feet running down the dock.
+David Brewster and Tom Curtis were side by side. But they both looked
+more surprised than frightened. In the water, a few feet from the dock,
+Captain Jules espied Madge Morton, her white hat floating off the back of
+her head, her face and hair dripping with water. She was smiling in a
+half-apologetic and half-nervous way. In one hand she held a small boy
+firmly by the collar. "Fish us out, somebody?" she begged. "I am
+dreadfully sorry to spoil my clothes, but this little wretch would go and
+fall into the water at the very last moment."
+
+Captain Jules and one of his sailors pulled Madge and the small boy
+safely onto the wharf again. The captain frowned at her solemnly, while
+David and Tom laughed.
+
+"How am I ever going to keep her out of the bottom of the sea?" the
+captain inquired sternly. "I don't know that I care for the role of
+playing guardian to a mermaid."
+
+Madge could see Mrs. Curtis, Miss Jenny Ann, her chums and her father, as
+well as their other friends, hurrying down toward the end of the dock.
+She gave one swift glance at them, then she looked ruefully at her own
+dripping garments. Tom and David long remembered her as they saw her at
+that moment. Her white dress clung to her slender form; the water was
+dripping from her clothing, her cheeks were a brilliant crimson from
+embarrassment at her plight; her red-brown hair glinted in the bright
+sunlight, and her blue eyes sparkled with mischief and dismay. Before any
+one had a chance to scold or to reproach her, she had dashed across the
+wharf, run aboard the yacht and had shut herself up in her stateroom.
+
+A few minutes later, dressed in a fresh white serge frock, she emerged to
+say good-bye. The houseboat girls had made up their minds that not one
+tear would any one of them shed when the moment of parting came. Lillian
+and Phil stood on either side of Eleanor, for neither of them had much
+faith that Nellie could keep her word when it came to the test.
+
+Madge went first to Mr. and Mrs. John Randolph. "Miss Betsey" took both
+her hands and held them gravely. "Madge, dear, remember I have always
+told you that wherever you were exciting things were sure to happen. You
+have convinced me of it again to-day. Now, you are going around the world
+and I hope you will see and know only the best there is in it. Good-bye."
+Miss Betsey leaned on her distinguished old husband's arm for support and
+surreptitiously wiped her eyes.
+
+"Jenny Ann Jones, you promised I wouldn't have to say good-bye to you,"
+protested Madge chokingly. Miss Jenny Ann nodded, while Mr. Theodore
+Brown gazed at her comfortingly. Madge rallied her courage and smiled at
+both of them. "Do you remember, Jenny Ann," she questioned, "how on the
+very first of our houseboat trips you said that you would marry some day,
+just to be able to get rid of the name of 'Jones'? I am sure you will
+like 'Brown' a whole lot better." Madge turned saucily away to hide the
+trembling of her lips.
+
+Mrs. Curtis said nothing. She just kissed Madge's forehead, both rosy
+cheeks and once on her red lips. But when the little captain left her,
+and Mrs. Curtis turned to find her son standing near her, his face white
+and his lips set, his mother faltered brokenly: "I am trying hard not to
+be selfish, Tom, and I am glad, with all my heart, that Madge found her
+father, but no one will ever know how sorry I am not to have her for my
+daughter."
+
+"Maybe you will some day, after all, Mother," returned Tom steadily. "We
+are young, I know, and neither of us has seen much of the world. Still, I
+am fairly sure I know my own mind. Perhaps Madge will care as much as I
+do now when the right time comes."
+
+At the last, Madge could not say farewell to her three chums. Her eyes
+were so full of tears that Captain Jules had to lead her aboard the
+yacht. She stood on the deck, kissing both hands to them as long as she
+could see them, until their little boat had been towed far out into the
+great New York harbor.
+
+Madge's father stood by her, watching the sunlight dance upon the water.
+
+"My little girl," Captain Morton began, with a view of distracting her
+attention from the sorrow of parting, "I have always forgotten to tell
+you that I saw you graduate at Miss Tolliver's. Jules was not with me
+that day. He knew of you but never saw you until you went to Cape May. I
+wonder I didn't betray myself to you then, dear. It was I who first
+called out to you when I saw that arch tottering over your head."
+
+Madge nodded. "I know it now," she replied. "I must have caught a brief
+glimpse of your face. You and Captain Jules sent me the wonderful pearl.
+We never could guess from whom it had come."
+
+"Yes," answered Captain Morton, "Jules and I had kept it for you for many
+years. We determined that sooner or later you should have it. I shall
+never forget the day when Jules came hurrying into 'The Anchorage' with
+the news that he had seen you and talked with you about me. He was sure
+that you were our Madge even before he knew your name to be Morton. It
+was wonderful to hear that your dearest wish was to find me."
+
+Madge slipped her arm into that of her father and laid her curly head
+against his shoulder. "If it was Fate that separated us, then I shall
+never be dismayed by it again, for love and determination are far greater
+and through them I found you," she declared softly.
+
+"I am afraid I am very selfish to take you away for a whole year from
+Mrs. Curtis and Tom and the houseboat girls," said her father, almost
+wistfully. "You are not sorry you are going to spend the next few months
+with no one but two old men for company?"
+
+"But I spent eighteen years without you," reminded Madge. "Don't you
+believe I ought to begin to make up for lost time? Just think,"--her eyes
+grew tender with the pride of possession--"I have what I've longed for
+more than anything else in the world, my father's love. Perhaps when we
+come back next year we can anchor the 'Little Captain' in Pleasure Bay
+and invite the 'Merry Maid' and her crew to visit us. Then Miss Jenny Ann
+could be married on the houseboat. We must be very sure to come home on
+time if we carry out that plan."
+
+"Aye, aye, Captain Madge," smiled her father, "unless our good ship fails
+us we'll anchor next September in Pleasure Bay and send a special
+invitation to the crew of the 'Merry Maid' to meet us there."
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Madge Morton's Victory, by Amy D.V. Chalmers
+
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