bies on her fat pink cheek. "Come on, Phil. Hold tight
to Dot. If we are going to drive out to Miss Betsey Taylor's to see
whether she still desires to pay us sixty dollars a month for food,
lodging and the pleasure of our delightful society aboard our precious
houseboat, we had better start at once."

Phil, Madge and the twins waved good-bye to Mrs. Alden, who was well
enough now to be about her house, as they piled themselves into the
physician's old buggy, which he had left for their use during the day.

The doctor's suggestion looked as though it were going to come true. At
first Madge and Phil protested that they simply couldn't bear to take a
fussy old maid on their houseboat excursion. But then, if they did not
take Miss Betsey, there wouldn't be any excursion. The girls were
between Scylla and Charybdis, like the ill-fated Ulysses on his journey
back from Troy. Scylla, Miss Betsey, went with them, or Charybdis, the
houseboat party, would have to decline Tom Curtis's offer to tow them up
the Rappahannock River. So the girls decided to choose "Miss Scylla," as
they nicknamed poor Miss Betsey.

As for Miss Betsey Taylor, she had been even more horrified than the two
houseboat girls when the doctor made the proposal to her. How was she to
cure her nerves by trusting herself to a party of gay young people with
a twenty-six-year-old chaperon as the only balance to the party. Absurd!
Miss Betsey wrung her hands at the very idea. But after a while the
allurement of the plan began to stir even her conventional old soul. The
thought of being borne gently along a beautiful river dividing the
Virginia shores wrought enchantment. There was something else that
influenced Miss Betsey. Years before she had had a "near romance." A
young Virginia officer had come to New York and had met Miss Betsey at
the home of a friend. During one winter he saw her many times, and
although he was too poor to speak of marriage, Miss Betsey was entitled
to believe that he had cared for her. One day Miss Betsey had an
argument with her admirer. It was a foolish argument, but the Virginia
officer believed that Miss Betsey had insulted him. He went away and
never saw her again. Afterward she learned that he had returned to his
ruined estate in Virginia.

It was a poor shadow of a romance, but Miss Betsey had never had
another. In late years she had begun to think of her past. It _did_ add
a flavor of romance to her trip in the houseboat to imagi