Several days had passed since Madge and Phil had returned. A big fire roared up the chimney. Madge lay on a blanket spread over some hemlock boughs in one corner of the room. Phil sat near her, feeding the fawn from a cup with a spoon.
Miss Jenny Ann had an open book in her lap, while Eleanor peered over her shoulder. A single candle burned near them. Lillian sat by the fire. Every now and then she threw an armful of pine cones on the fire to make more light in the room.
Miss Jenny Ann was trying to instruct four of her pupils from "Miss Tolliver's Select School for Girls" in the intricacies of algebraical problems.
Since the disappointing trip to the opposite shore of the island Madge had not been well. The sunshine had faded. The cold autumn rains had begun. The food in the larder, supplied from the houseboat, had grown perilously low. It was hard work to spend many hours in hunting or in fishing in such weather. Nuts had commenced to pall as an article of daily diet. Fight as they might, the spirit of the houseboat party had begun to sink toward zero.
Suppose, after all, thought they, that they should not be rescued, even by the first Monday in November, when Madge assured them the duck shooting began? Perhaps there would not be any ducks this year, or else no one would come to shoot them? There was nothing too dreadful to imagine!
Instead of being comforted by Madge's and Phil's report that they were not alone on the island, Miss Jenny Ann was the more uneasy. She did not believe that such a man as the girls had seen would help them to leave this island.
Miss Jenny Ann had been trying to beguile the tedium of the stormy days by interesting the girls in the lessons they would even now have been studying at Miss Tolliver's school if their houseboat had not sailed away from her anchorage. All the old school books had been brought up from the "Merry Maid." At first the girls were much pleased with Miss Jenny Ann's idea. Eleanor declared that it would be splendid not to be behind their classes when they returned to school that fall.
To-night, however, it was quite impossible to take a proper interest in algebraical problems, when each member of the little group had such a serious individual problem staring her in the face. It did not look as though they were likely to return to Miss Tolliver's in the immediate future.
"A penny for your thoughts, girls," remarked Miss Jenny Ann suddenly. "Eleanor, dear, I am going to begin with you. We are all in the dumps to-night. Perhaps it will cheer us up to tell one another our thoughts."
Eleanor shook her head. She had been pretending to look over Miss Jones's shoulder, but her eyes were really full of tears.