Madge Morton's Secret

by Amy D. V. Chalmers

"Here, here, Madge!" cried Phyllis Alden, appearing suddenly with the bread knife—she had been making sandwiches for their party—"them's my sentiments to a T! I'll cut off Miss Harris's head with the carving knife if you say so."

Madge laughed. "Oh, no, Phil, I suppose we shall have to be as sweet as cream to her because her friends are our Mrs. Curtis's friends. Miss Harris will probably be invited to all the parties we have while we are here."

"Lieutenant Lawton is nice and interesting, at any rate," interposed Phil. "Don't think that he talked to me about himself. He only said that he was in the Navy. But Tom told me that Lieutenant Lawton was working on a wonderful invention. I think it is something about a torpedo-boat destroyer that will go twice as fast as any other torpedo boat," Phil went on vaguely. "Lieutenant Lawton has a work-shop near Fortress Monroe. It is kept absolutely private through fear that some one will steal the model for the boat before Lieutenant Lawton has completed it."

"You became very well acquainted with this young lieutenant, Phil," teased Madge. "I suppose he will be rich if he succeeds with his invention."

Phil shook her dark head enthusiastically. "No; that is why I think he is so splendid," she argued. "He will make no money, unless our Government chooses to make him a gift, or to give him a higher rank in the Navy. Tom says that several foreign countries have offered Lieutenant Lawton thousands of dollars for his invention. There are American ship-building companies, too, that would give him a great deal of money for it. Two men are at Old Point now trying to tempt Lieutenant Lawton to sell his secret. But Tom says nothing will influence him; he is such a patriot!"

"Girls, it is time to dress for your tea-party," announced Miss Jenny Ann.

For an instant she experienced a vague regret that her girls were about to come in contact with so many fashionable people. She wished that she could transplant them to the free outdoor life that had characterized their first houseboat holiday. Here was sensible Phil, her head filled with stories of wonderful secret inventions and young inventors. And Phil had been the most dependable of her charges.

But Miss Jenny Ann was looking in the wrong direction for trouble. She should have concerned herself with the naughty plan that was forming in Madge's mind. It had never been worth while to pretend that the little captain was always noble and high-minded. She was capable of generous impulses and she loved her friends so dearly that she would do anything in the world for them. But she was proud and a trifle vain. She hated to be snubbed and treated as though she were absolutely of no importance. So she had quite made up her mind to be revenged on Flora Harris. Just at the time she could think of no better way than to make friends with Flora's particular admirer, Alfred Thornton. He was an extremely wealthy young man in prospect, his father being a Pittsburg millionaire. Flora was a snob; she was only seventeen, but her mother was a foolish, flighty woman, who allowed her daughter to think that she was already grown-up. Although Flora was not out of school, her mother never ceased to preach to her that she was not to marry a poor Army officer, so the young girl was pleased to have a wealthy young man as one of her admirers.

Madge knew that Alfred Thornton was snobbish and mean-spirited. She did not like him. She decided that on the night of the ball. She had seen him exchanging smiles with Miss Harris behind their backs before Tom Curtis had introduced him as his friend. This merely confirmed her bad opinion of him. But she realized that young Thornton had been attracted by her, and she naughtily resolved to turn his attentions from the elegant Miss Harris to herself. When she went into her cabin to dress for their tea-party it was with the determination to teach the girl she disliked that Madge Morton, country-bred though she might be, was a force yet to be reckoned with.

At two o'clock that afternoon Miss Jenny Ann and the four girls received their guests, and a little later tea was served on the deck at the dainty tea table under the big Japanese umbrellas. Madge, looking radiant in a little frock of white organdie dotted with tiny green leaves, poured the tea.