CHAPTER XVII
THE FAIRY GODMOTHER’S WISH COMES TRUE
Captain Jules decided to wait until another day before taking Phyllis Alden on the journey from which he and Madge had just returned. The old sailor was too deeply thankful to see his first charge safe on land. Poor Miss Jenny Ann could do nothing but lean over Madge and cry; the nervous strain of waiting while the girl was under the water had been too great. Indeed, even the people who, Madge knew, were not in the least interested in her, appeared dreadfully upset. Philip Holt’s face was very pale and his eyes shifted uneasily from Phyllis’s to Madge’s face.
Phyllis was the most self-possessed of the four girls. She was greatly disappointed at the captain’s determination to put off the time for her diving expedition until a later date. But Phyllis was always unselfish. She realized that her chaperon and her friends had had about as much anxiety as they could endure in one day. Madge had been under the water, and she could not dream of what the others had suffered above, while awaiting her return.
Mrs. Curtis put her arms about the little captain and embraced her with an affection she had not shown her during the summer.
“My dear,” she murmured, “will you ever stop being the most reckless girl in the world? What possible good could that wretched diving feat of yours do anybody on earth? If my hair weren’t already white I am sure it would have turned so in the last half-hour. Look at poor Philip Holt. He seems as nervous as though you were his own sister.”
Madge and Captain Jules had both taken off their heavy diving suits and were soon shaking hands with every one on the pier. Even Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar, much as they disliked Madge, could not conceal the fact that they thought her extremely plucky.
Captain Jules had laid the iron chest on the ground and for the moment they had forgotten it.