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Updated: June 19, 2025
The little girl had just built a house of shining pebbles and was gazing at it with a pleased smile when she heard a step near her on the sand. Tania stared up at Philip's thin, blonde face in terror-stricken silence. "Tania," the young man asked harshly, "have you told any one down here that you have ever seen or known me before?" Tania shook her head mutely.
But there was no sound from the little rowboat, save the gurgle of the water and a shrill scream from Tania as the waves closed over her head. The yacht swept on past, borne perhaps by her own headway. As Madge went down under the water two thoughts seemed to come to her mind in the same second: she must look after Eleanor and Tania.
She might lose her presence of mind completely and fail to strike out when she rose to the surface of the water. As for Tania, Madge was aware that she, of course, could not swim a stroke. The little one had never been in deep water before in her life. Madge struggled for breath for a second as she came to the surface of the bay again. She had swallowed some salt water as she went down.
"Jest you come along home with me and you'll git what is comin' to you, you good-for-nothin' little imp." "Is she your mother?" asked Madge doubtfully, gazing at the brutal woman and the strange child. Tania shook her black head scornfully. "Oh, dear, no," she answered. "It is only that I have to live with her now, while I am under the enchantment.
After luncheon, at which the captain devoured six of Miss Jenny Ann's best cornbread gems, he sat down in a chair on the houseboat deck, holding Tania in his arms. He talked most to Phyllis, but he seldom took his eyes off Madge's face. Sometimes he frowned at her; now and then he smiled.
"Look ahoy! look ahoy!" a friendly voice cried out from across the water. Phyllis closed her book with a snap, Lillian and Eleanor dropped their sewing, Tania ran to the water's edge, and Madge sat up. It was Captain Jules who had hailed them. "Well, my hearties, is this a summer camp?" demanded the old sailor as his boat came near the land. "I have been all the way to the houseboat to find you.
But Eleanor shook her head firmly. "No; Father says positively that he does not wish us to leave the houseboat until our holiday is over. It is not costing us very much and he wishes us to have a good time this summer, so that we can bear whatever happens next winter." No one had noticed little Tania while the houseboat girls were talking.
During this dreadful time Tania had no human companion, but she was not like other children. She was part little girl and the rest of her an elf or a fay. The trees, the birds, and flowers were almost as real to her as human beings. For, until Madge and Eleanor had found her dancing on the New York City street corner, she had never had anybody to be kind to her, or whom she could love.
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. 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.
Her dancing was as much a part of nature as the summer sunshine, and Madge and Eleanor were bewitched. A rough woman came out of a nearby doorway. She stood with her hands on her hips looking in the direction of the music. "Tania!" she called angrily. Elbowing her way through the crowd, she jostled Madge as she passed by her. "Tania!" she cried again.
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