r after the first alarm, and daylight was beginning to
dawn, when Phyllis Alden heard a noise from Miss Betsey's stateroom. She
went in, to find the old lady seated on her trunk wringing her hands.
She had been awake so long that she was tired and querulous. Her
corkscrew curls were carefully arranged and she was fully dressed. Her
head was bobbing with indignation. "I am perfectly willing to confess
that I am worried about that child," she announced to Phyllis. "But I
knew, as soon as I set my eyes upon her, that wherever Madge Morton went
there was sure to be some kind of excitement. It may not be her fault,
but----" Miss Betsey paused dramatically. "And your father, Phyllis
Alden, was a great goose, and I an even greater one, to trust myself on
this ridiculous houseboat excursion. A rest cure! Good for my nerves to
be among young people!" Miss Betsey fairly snorted. "I shall be a happy
woman when I am safe in my own home again!"

Phyllis hurried into the galley and came back with a glass of milk for
the exhausted old lady. "Come, take a walk around the boat with me,
Miss Betsey," she invited comfortingly. "We can't do anything more to
find Madge until the morning comes."

Phil was always a consolation to persons in trouble, she was so quiet
and steadfast. She wrapped Miss Betsey in a light woolen shawl and
together they walked up and down the little houseboat deck. Phyllis kept
her eyes fixed on the shore. Madge had surely gone out for a walk and
something had detained her. Her loyal friend would not confess even to
herself the uneasiness she really felt.

Miss Betsey and Phil stood for a quiet minute in the stern of the "Merry
Maid," watching the morning break in a splendor of yellow and rose
across the eastern sky. Not far away Miss Jenny Ann was talking to
several of the boys, with her arms about Eleanor and Lillian.

Miss Betsey Taylor glanced down at the mirroring gold and rose of the
water under her feet.

"My gracious, sakes alive, it has gone!" she exclaimed, pointing a
trembling finger toward the river.

"What has gone, Miss Betsey?" inquired Phil. "Don't tell us that
anything else besides Madge has vanished."

"But it has," Miss Betsey Taylor insisted. "Where is that little rowboat
that you girls call the 'Water Witch,' that is always hitched to the
stern of this houseboat? I saw it last night just before I went to bed.
Wherever that child has gone the boat has gone with her."

Everyone crowded aro