sunlight. It was not so easy to see through them. Madge ran straight
past the tree, then uttered a shrill cry. She stopped short, her
cheeks turning first red, then white.

"What is it?" cried Phil, springing to her friend's side.

Madge pointed dumbly toward the water.

"Tell us!" said Eleanor, running up to Madge and lightly grasping her
arm.

"Our houseboat is gone!" gasped Madge. "It was right there, tied to
that very post along the shore early this morning! The man who brought
it down from Baltimore left a note for me describing the landing place.
He said he had to go back to Baltimore, but that he would come here
this afternoon to tow us. Now the boat has gone! O, girls, what shall
we do?"

The girls stared at the water in silence. Disappointment rendered them
speechless for the moment. "Let us look up and down the shore,"
suggested Phil comfortingly. "I suppose it is just barely possible
that the rope broke away from the stake, and the boat has floated off
somewhere."

The four girls ran up and down the bank, straining their eyes in
anxious glances out over the wide stretch of water. There was no
houseboat in sight. It had vanished as completely as though it had
really been a "Ship of Dreams."

"Perhaps you have made a mistake in the place, Madge," was the