Madge Morton's Victory.

by Amy D.V. Chalmers.

CHAPTER I

COMMENCEMENT DAY AT MISS TOLLIVER'S

"O Phil, dear! It is anything but fair. If you only knew how I hate to have to do it!" exclaimed Madge Morton impulsively, throwing her arms about her chum's neck and burying her red-brown head in the soft, white folds of Phyllis Alden's graduation gown. "No one in our cla.s.s wishes me to be the valedictorian. You know you are the most popular girl in our school. Yet here I am the one chosen to stand up before everyone and read my stupid essay when your average was just exactly as high as mine."

Madge Morton and Phyllis Alden were alone in their own room at the end of the dormitory of Miss Matilda Tolliver's Select School for Girls, at Harborpoint, one morning late in May. Through the halls one could hear occasional bursts of girlish laughter, and the murmur of voices betokened unusual excitement.

It was the morning of the annual spring commencement.

Phyllis slowly unclasped Madge's arms from about her neck and gazed at her companion steadfastly, a flush on her usually pale cheeks.

"If you say another word about that old valedictory, I shall never forgive you!" she declared vehemently. "You know that Miss Tolliver is going to announce to the audience that our averages were the same. You were chosen to deliver the valedictory because you can make a speech so much better than I. What is the use of bringing up this subject now, just a few minutes before our commencement begins? You know how often we have talked this over before, and that I told Miss Matilda that I wished you to be the valedictorian instead of me, even before she selected you."

Phil's earnest black eyes looked sternly into Madge's troubled blue ones.

"If you begin worrying about that now, you won't be able to read your essay half as well," declared Phil impatiently. "Please sit still for a minute and wait until Miss Jenny Ann calls us."

Phil pushed Madge gently toward the big armchair. Then she walked over to stand by the window, in order to watch the carriages drive up to Miss Tolliver's door and to keep her back turned directly upon her friend Madge.

The little captain sat very still for a few minutes. She had on an exquisite white organdie gown, a white sash, white slippers and white silk stockings. In the knot of sunny curled hair drawn high upon her head she wore a single white rose. A bunch of roses lay in her lap, also a ma.n.u.script in Madge's slightly vertical handwriting, which she fingered restlessly.

The silence grew monotonous to Madge.

"Are you angry with me, Phil?" she asked forlornly.

Madge and Phyllis Alden had been best friends for four years, and had never had a real disagreement until this morning.

Phyllis was too honest to be deceitful. "I am a little cross," she admitted without turning around. "I wish Lillian and Eleanor would come upstairs to tell us how many people have arrived for the commencement."

Madge started across the room toward Phil. But Phyllis's back was uncompromising. She pretended not to hear her friend's light step.

Suddenly Madge's expression changed. The color rose to her face and her eyes flashed.

"I won't apologize to you, Phil," she said. "I had intended to, but I see no reason why I should not say it is unfair for me to be the valedictorian when you have the same claim to it that I have. It is hateful in you not to understand how I feel about it. I am going to find Miss Jenny Ann." Madge's voice broke.

A knock on the door interrupted the two girls. Madge opened the door to a boy, who handed her a small parcel addressed in a curious handwriting to "Miss Madge Morton." The letters were printed, but the writing did not look like a child's. It was the fiftieth graduating gift that she had received. Phil's number had already reached the half-hundred mark.

Madge dropped her newest package on the bed without opening it. She was half-way out in the hall when Phyllis pulled her back.

"Look me straight in the face," ordered Phil. Madge obeyed, the flash in her eyes fading swiftly. "Now, see here, dear," argued Phyllis, "suppose that Miss Matilda had chosen me to deliver the valedictory instead of you, wouldn't you have been glad?"

Madge nodded happily. "I should say I would," she murmured fervently.

Phyllis laughed, then leaned over and kissed her friend triumphantly.

"There, you have said just what I wanted to make you say," went on Phil.

"You say you would be glad if Miss Tolliver had chosen me for the valedictorian instead of you. Why can't you let me have the same feeling about you? Please, please understand, Madge, dear"--the tears started to Phil's eyes--"that no one has been unfair to me because you were Miss Matilda's choice."

Madge glanced nervously at the little gold clock on their mantel shelf.

"It is nearly time for the entertainment to begin, isn't it?" she inquired. "I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will call us in time. What a lot of noise the girls are making in the hall!"

She idly untied her latest graduating gift. It was a small box, made after a fashion of long years ago, and its tops and sides were encrusted with tiny sh.e.l.ls. On one side of the box the word "Madge" was worked out in tiny sh.e.l.ls as clear and beautiful as jewels. Inside the box, on a piece of cotton, was a single, wonderful pearl. It was unset, but the two girls realized that it was rarely beautiful. There was no name in the box, no card to show from whom it came.

Madge turned the box upside down and peered inside of it. "I don't know who could have sent this to me," she declared, in a puzzled fashion.

"Mrs. Curtis is the only rich person I know in the whole world, and she has already given us her presents. I must show this to Uncle and Aunt. I am afraid they won't wish me to keep it. But I don't know how we are ever going to return it to the giver when he or she is anonymous."

"Isn't that Miss Jenny Ann calling?" Madge turned pale with the excitement of the coming hour and thrust the gift under her pillow.

Phyllis picked up a great bunch of red roses. The eventful moment had arrived. The graduating exercises at Miss Matilda Tolliver's were about to begin!

Neither of the two girls knew how they walked up on the stage. Before them swam "a sea of upturned faces." It was impossible to tell one person from another. When Madge and Phil overcame their fright they discovered that they were among the twelve girl graduates, who formed a white semi-circle about the stage, and that Miss Matilda Tolliver was making an address of welcome to the audience.

Phyllis had no dreaded speech ahead of her. She looked out over the audience and saw her father and mother, Dr. and Mrs. Alden; and Madge's uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Butler; but Madge could think of nothing save the terrifying fact that she must soon deliver her valedictory.

"Madge," whispered Phil softly, "don't look so frightened. You know you have made speeches before and have acted before people. I am not a bit afraid you will fail. See if you can find Mrs. Curtis and Tom. There they are, smiling at us from behind Eleanor and Lillian."

Readers of "MADGE MORTON, CAPTAIN OF THE 'MERRY MAID'," will remember the delightful fashion in which Madge Morton, Eleanor Butler, Lillian Seldon and Phyllis Alden spent a summer on a houseboat, which they evolved from an old ca.n.a.l boat and named the "Merry Maid."

How they anch.o.r.ed at quiet spots along Chesapeake Bay, made the acquaintance of Mrs. Curtis, a wealthy widow, and what came of the friendship that sprang up between her and Madge Morton made a story well worth the telling.

In "MADGE MORTON'S SECRET" the scene of their second houseboat adventure found them at Old Point Comfort, where, as Mrs. Curtis's guests, they partook of the social side of the Army and Navy life to be found there.

The origin of Captain Madge's secret, and of how she kept it in spite of the humiliation and sorrow it entailed, the mysterious way in which the "Merry Maid" slipped her cable and drifted through heavy seas to a deserted island, where her crew lived the lives of girl Crusoes for many weeks, form a narrative of lively interest.

In "MADGE MORTON'S TRUST" the further adventures of the "Merry Maid" were fully related. For the sake of the trip the happy houseboat girls saddled themselves with Miss Betsey Taylor, a crotchety spinster, who was troubled with nerves, and who offered to pay liberally for her pa.s.sage on their cosy "Ship of Dreams."

Madge's faith and unshakable trust in David Brewster, a poor young man who did the work on Tom Curtis's yacht, which made the trip with the "Merry Maid," her championing of David when suspicion pointed darkly toward him as a thief, and her unswerving loyalty to the unhappy youth until his innocence was established, revealed the little captain in the light of a staunch true comrade and doubly endeared her to all her companions.

Madge heard Miss Matilda Tolliver announce that the valedictory would be delivered by Miss Madge Morton. Phyllis gave her companion a little nudge, and somehow Madge arrived at the front of the stage and stood under a huge arch of flowers. Just above her head swung a great bell.

Everyone was smiling at her. Madge was seized with a dreadful case of stage fright. Her tongue felt dry and parched. She tried to speak, but no sound came forth.

Mrs. Curtis's lovely face, with its crown of soft, white hair, smiled encouragingly at her. Tom was crimson with embarra.s.sment. Lillian and Eleanor held each other's hands. Would Madge never begin her valedictory?

She tried again. No one heard her except her friends and teachers on the stage. Her voice was no louder than a faint whisper.

Miss Tolliver leaned over. "Madge, speak more distinctly," she ordered.

Then the little captain realized that the most humiliating moment of her whole life had arrived. She had been selected as the valedictorian of her cla.s.s, she had been chosen above her beloved Phil because of her gift as a speaker, yet she would be obliged to return to her seat without having delivered a line of her address. She would be disgraced forever!

Madge's knees shook. Her lips trembled. Tears swam mistily in her eyes.

She was a lovely picture despite her fright.

At eighteen she was in the first glory of her youth, a tall, slender girl, with a curious warmth and glow of life. Her lips were deeply crimson, her hair a soft brown, with red and gold lights in it, and her eyes were full of the eagerness that foreshadows both happiness and pain.

Phil and Miss Jenny Ann were exchanging glances of despair--Madge had broken down, there was no hope for her. Suddenly her face broke into one of its sunniest smiles. She lifted her head. Without glancing at the paper she held in her hand she began her address in a clear, penetrating voice.