"So do we," murmured Phil, with a rueful laugh. "We need Madge as much as Mrs. Curtis does."
After the girls had left her, Madge lay back luxuriously among her linen pillows. She was looking very lovely in a pale pink silk tea gown Mrs. Curtis had insisted on her wearing, for Madge had arrived at the hotel with no clothes other than the wet garments she had on when rescued from the waves. Her fine clothes occupied very little of her thoughts, however. She had something of far greater import on her mind.
The time had come to tell Mrs. Curtis that she must go back to the houseboat. She was not sorry to go; she was only sorry to leave her new friends. During her stay at the hotel Mrs. Curtis had treated Madge as though she were her own daughter. The imaginative young girl was completely fascinated with the beautiful, white-haired woman, whose sad face seemed to indicate that she had suffered some tragedy in her life. While Madge lay thinking of the most courteous way in which to announce that she must return to the "Merry Maid" a light knock sounded on her door. Tom's mother came softly into the room, gowned in an exquisite afternoon costume of violet organdie and fine lace, which was very becoming to her white hair and youthful face.
"Are you awake, Madge?" were her first words. "How do you feel?"
Her guest smilingly raised herself from her pillows. "I am awake as can be, and as well as can be! To tell you the truth, Mrs. Curtis, I have never been in the least ill from my adventure. I was tired the day after it happened, but since that time I am afraid I have allowed you and Tom to believe that I was sick because I liked to be petted and made much of." Madge laughed frankly at her own confession. "You have been so good to me, and I do appreciate it, but now I must go home to my comrades. Eleanor was awfully disappointed to-day when I told her I was not going back with them this afternoon."
"I wish you would stay with me longer," pleaded Mrs. Curtis, taking the girl's firm brown hand in hers and looking down at it gravely, as it lay in her soft white one. She gazed earnestly at Madge's clear-cut, expressive face. "Tom and I will be lonely without you," she said. "I want a daughter dreadfully, and Tom needs a sister. If only you were my own daughter."
Madge sighed happily. "It has been beautiful to pretend that I was your real daughter. It has been like the games I used to play when I was a little girl. I have been lying here in the afternoons, when you thought I was asleep, making up the nicest 'supposes.' I supposed that I was your real daughter, that I had been lost and you had found me after many years. Just at first you did not know me, because time had made such a change in me. But—— Why, Mrs. Curtis, what is the matter?" There was wonder and concern in Madge's question. "You don't mind what I have said, do you? I have been making up things to amuse myself ever since I was a little girl." She looked anxiously into the face of the older woman. It was very white, and seemed suddenly to have become drawn and old.
"My dear child, I love to have you tell me of your little dreams and fancies," said Mrs. Curtis affectionately, laying her hand on Madge's head. "What made you think I didn't?"
"You looked as though what I said hurt your feelings," returned Madge, coloring at her own frankness.
"It was only that something you said brought back a painful memory," explained the older woman. "I would prefer not to talk of it. Tell me, is there nothing I can do to induce you to remain with me a little longer?"