all summer if you like. But no one asked my permission to tie the boat
to my post. And soon as I seen it, I just thought the boat belonged to
some rich society folks who thought they owned the airth. I hid the
boat up the bay a piece. But don't you fret. I'll go git it and tote
it back in no time."

"I am so sorry," explained Madge prettily, ashamed of her bad temper
and how near she had come to displaying it. "I thought, of course, the
engineer who towed our boat out here from Baltimore had asked your
permission before he made a landing. I suppose he was in such a hurry
to get back to the city that he neglected it."

While the girls and their chaperon waited for the return of their
houseboat they ate an early luncheon out of the hampers that Phil and
Lillian had brought from their homes to provision the travelers for the
day.

The houseboat finally did appear, much as the girls had pictured her.
She was painted white, with a line of green showing just above the
water. The four rooms in the cabin, which was set well toward the
stern, opened into each other, and each room had a small door and
window facing on the deck. The two bedrooms had six berths set along
the walls. One room was intended for the kitchen and the fourth, which
was the largest, was to serve as the dining room, sitting room, work
and play room for the houseboat party on rainy days, when it was
impossible for them to be out on deck.

While the men were unloading the barrels and boxes on the boat the
girls ran in and out the doors of their cabin rooms like the figures in
a pantomime, bumping into each other and stumbling over things. Miss