"You can," urged Madge. "Only, please, don't be so stubborn. It can't hurt your cousin for me to tell what he has done. Mr. Preston and Miss Betsey have never seen him and they will both promise never to try to punish him for the theft. They have their things back, so they are not hurt, except by----"

"By what?" asked David unsuspiciously.

"By their lack of faith in you, David," answered Madge convincingly. "It hurts awfully to be deceived in people. Miss Betsey cried all night, and Mr. Preston ate hardly any breakfast or luncheon, they have been so unhappy over you."

The little captain thought she saw signs of relenting in David's face.

"Do let me tell," she pleaded. "I really can't bear it, if you don't,"

she ended in characteristic Madge-fashion.

David smiled and nodded.

Without waiting to give him a chance to change his mind she ran into the house and up the front steps. The three girls and the motor launch boys had returned and were wondering what had become of her. Madge swept them all before her into the Preston library. Then, summoning her host and hostess, Miss Betsey and Miss Jenny Ann, Madge told David's story.

Perhaps she made him a hero in explaining how he was willing to take his cousin's crime on his own shoulders, rather than have Miss Betsey and Mrs. Preston lose their property, but at least, after she had finished, there was no one present who did not have a feeling of admiration for David, who had tried to do his duty even at the expense of his good name.

CHAPTER XXIV

"GOOD LUCK TO THE BRIDE"

"Do you think it is very funny, Tom?" inquired Phil. She and Madge, Lillian, Eleanor and the four motor launch boys were on the deck of the "Sea Gull." They were gliding down the Rappahannock toward the great Chesapeake Bay. Moving gracefully behind the motor boat was the familiar form of the "Merry Maid." A group of older people sat out on her deck, gazing along the sun-lit sh.o.r.es of the river. The cruise of the houseboat was almost over.

Tom Curtis hesitated at Phil's question. "I ought not to say it is funny," he returned, "but I really think it is."

"Don't any of you dare to let Miss Betsey know you think so," warned Madge.

Eleanor looked aggrieved. "I am sure I don't know what there is funny about it," she protested. "I think it is lovely. Only it wasn't nice in Miss Betsey not to let us be her bridesmaids." Eleanor gazed across the little s.p.a.ce of water to where Mr. and Mrs. John Randolph sat together on the deck of the "Merry Maid" with the blind child, Alice.

Madge laughed softly. "Miss Betsey said she felt enough like a fool, being married at her age, without having a lot of young girls standing around to laugh at her. But John Randolph wouldn't let her take care of him unless she did marry him, and she had no idea of separating him from his grandchild," concluded Madge.

"What a lot of things have happened this summer," remarked Lillian. "Who would have thought that we should leave David Brewster in Virginia! Mr.

Preston says that if David will work for him he will help him go to college."

"David is a bully fellow!" declared Tom. "I don't think we understood him just at first."

"Yes, and Tom Curtis is another," teased Madge; "only he won't blow his own horn, unless it is his fog-horn. Tom offered to pay David's expenses at college if he would come home with us, but David said he thought it would be better for him to earn his own way."

Miss Jenny Ann waved frantically from the deck of the houseboat.

"Tie up along sh.o.r.e, Tom; it is growing late. Remember, this is our last supper party together this summer," she called out.

It was the first week in September. The evening had grown unexpectedly cool when Tom ran the two boats up by the river bank. In the morning they were to put into sh.o.r.e at a nearby town, and the little company of friends would disband to travel to their homes in various parts of the country. So for to-night they had planned to have a wonderful feast on land, and to make it their good-bye memory of their summer cruise.

Tom had selected a line of open sh.o.r.e, with a grove of chestnut trees just back of it.

Each member of the party went on land, bearing boxes, lunch-hampers and baskets of fruit. Tom staggered under a particularly large box that was very tall and round, as though it contained a new Easter bonnet with feathers standing straight up on it.

Madge and Phil marched behind him, urging him to be careful every foot of the way.

"Girls!" cried Miss Betsey excitedly, coming up beside them with her bonnet over one ear and her long cape flying out behind her, "I have a confession to make to you; I had better out with it before I forget it.

You remember those small sums of money that I vowed I had lost when we were first aboard the houseboat?"

Both girls nodded, though their faces clouded at the recollection.

"Well, they were not stolen at all," announced Miss Betsey shamefacedly.

"I am an old woman, children, in spite of my present performances. I had tucked that money away in the little table drawer in my cabin on the houseboat; I suppose I meant to use it for something, and then forgot it. I have a short memory for some things and a long one for others,"

Miss Betsey's eyes twinkled as her husband came up to join her.

Harry Sears and George Robinson made a huge campfire near the spot where the voyagers had chosen to have their supper. Miss Jenny Ann got out the big coffee pot. The rest of the party started in to spread the feast on a big damask table cloth that Miss Betsey had arranged on the gra.s.s.

"Madge, you and Tom Curtis go off to some place to find water for the lemonade," ordered Miss Betsey. Madge and Tom each seized a large tin bucket. Not far off they could see a funny little log house that must belong to one of the river men, it was set so close to the river. They would find water there.

"I have something important to tell you, Madge," said Tom. He began searching diligently in his coat pocket for something, pulled out half a dozen letters, his knife and pocket-book, then with a blank look he exclaimed, "Jiminy! I hope I haven't lost it. Mother will never forgive me if I have."

"Lost what?" demanded Madge.

"Why, Mother sent you a present, and I have forgotten to give it to you. Now I am afraid I have lost it somewhere."

"Tom Curtis, put down that wretched bucket and hunt for it until you find it," insisted Madge. "What's that sticking out on the front pocket of your coat?"

Tom smiled in a relieved fashion as he handed Madge a box about four inches square. "It's Mother and it's a beauty," he announced.

Madge opened the box to find an exquisite miniature of her friend, Mrs.

Curtis. It was painted on ivory and was about the size of a locket.

Around it were exquisite pearls, and it hung on a slender gold chain.

The little captain's eyes filled with tears as she looked at it. "I would rather have it than anything in the world," she murmured. In the lining of the box Madge found a note, written on a card: "For my Madge,"

it read, "whom I shall never cease to wish to have for my daughter."

"I have something to tell you, too," added Tom. "My sister, Madeleine, is going to be married."

Madge nearly dropped her gift in her excitement. "Married! Madeleine!

What do you mean? Whom is she going to marry? Why didn't you tell me before?" she demanded, all in one breath. "Do hurry and tell me."

Tom laughed. "You'll never guess. She is going to marry the Judge Hilliard who rescued you and Phil the night that that wretched Mike Muldoon put you out of his sailboat. Judge Hilliard has always been a friend of ours, you know. At first Madeleine was just grateful to him for what he did for her. Afterward"--Tom colored--"I suppose she fell in love with him. I am not quite sure as to what it means to 'fall in love.' But Madeleine isn't going to be married for a year. Then she wants the four houseboat girls to be her bridesmaids."

Madge clasped her hands in rapture. "Won't it be fun!" she exclaimed.

"But do hurry on, Tom, or we shall never get the water for the lemonade."

They were almost back with their other friends when Tom had finished his mother's message: "When Madeleine is married, Mother means to ask you again to be her adopted daughter, Madge," continued Tom; "and you know how much I want you."

Madge shook her auburn head, her face pale with emotion. "It is too soon to talk about it, Tom," she answered. "You see, when I finish school I am going first to hunt for my father."

"Madge and Tom, do hurry here this minute!" scolded Phil from her seat on the gra.s.s. "The lemonade is all ready, except pouring on the water, and we are waiting supper for you."

The two boat parties were in a great circle about the big table cloth, with Mr. and Mrs. John Randolph at the head as the guests of honor of the feast.