CHAPTER IVTHE 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?” askedEleanor. “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 firstgreeting 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 attendto 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, breathinga 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 ofwhite 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 début 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’sshoulder. 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 herown 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 wehave 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, whohad 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 astrong 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 VTANIA, 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. Shecould 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 investigationshad 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 havesaid 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 Norahand 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 VIA 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. Howwide 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 newpersons 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 Iamnearly 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 shelaughed 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. Thinkof 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 toCape 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 VIICAPTAIN 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 largerboats 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 understandthe 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 thosepleasant 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 hadturned 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.
“Good Morning” Shouted Madge.
“Good Morning” Shouted Madge.