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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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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