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