Little by little Madge was able to put together the whole story of Philip Holt’s life. He was old Sal’s son, and “Holt” was not his own name, but he rarely came near his mother, never gave her any help, and denied his relationship with her whenever it was necessary. When Philip Murphy was a small boy, he had been taken into the home of a wealthy family named Holt, but he had never been legally adopted as their child. He was raised in luxury and had made a great many wealthy friends, and he had learned to love money more than anything else in the world. But his rich patrons would not allow him entirely to desert his own mother. Twice every month he was made to go to see old Sal Murphy in her tenement home on the East Side. Philip Holt, who now went by the name of his foster parents, fairly loathed these visits. It was because of his hatred of them that he began to take his spite out on Tania when he was a lad of about fifteen, and poor Tania a baby of only six years old.

Tania’s mother had died in the same tenement where old Sal lived. There had been no one who wanted the little girl, so old Sal had taken her, beaten and starved her, and made her useful in any way that she could.

When Philip Holt had grown to manhood his foster parents lost most of their money. A little later they died, leaving their foster son nothing. The young man had been used to luxury and rich friends, and he could not give them up, therefore he told his wealthy friends that because he had once been a poor boy he meant to devote his life to charity. He proposed to work among the New York poor and asked their cooperation. Large sums of money were given him to be used for charity, but Philip Holt believed too strongly in the theory that charity begins at home. Whenever it was possible he used a part of this money for himself. To make more, he began speculating in Wall Street. He lost two thousand, then five thousand dollars of the money that had been entrusted to him. For almost a year he had been the treasurer of a New York charitable organization, and the time was near at hand when he must give a report of the money that he had misused. He knew that disgrace, imprisonment, stared him in the face unless he could persuade Mrs. Curtis to advance him five thousand dollars for some charitable purpose, or give it to him for himself. He, therefore, did not intend to be balked in his plan by either Madge or Tania, no matter what desperate measures he had to employ.

So there were two persons at Cape May who came to believe that they stood in dire need of money. Yet they wished it for very different reasons: Philip Holt wanted money to save himself from disgrace; Madge desired it to help her uncle and aunt save their old home, “Forest House,” to send Eleanor back to graduate at Miss Tolliver’s in the fall, to start on her search for her father, and, last of all, to take care of Tania.

For Madge had managed the little waif’s affairs most undiplomatically. When she discovered the threat that Philip held over Tania if she told his secret, the little captain went to Mrs. Curtis with the story. She did not wish her friend to be deceived by the young man, so she confided to Mrs. Curtis that Philip Holt, who was supposedly the son of some old friends, was really the child of old Sal of the tenements. Mrs. Curtis thought that Madge must be mistaken. She wrote to old Sal to ask her if it were true. The Irish woman was devoted to her son. She would have done anything in the world not to disgrace him. She answered Mrs. Curtis’s letter by declaring that Philip Holt was no relative of hers, but a young man whom she knew because of his kindness to the poor. Mrs. Curtis was indignant. She insisted that Tania had told Madge a falsehood, and that Philip Holt was right in his opinion of Tania. It would not be well to send the child to a school; she should be put in some kind of an institution. This, however, Madge was determined should never happen. She had no money of her own, nor did she know where she was to obtain the means, but she made up her mind to find some way to provide for her quaint little Fairy Godmother.

The morning after Madge’s disquieting talk with Mrs. Curtis the four girls and Tania wandered up the bay to spend the morning in the woods near the water. Phyllis carried a book that she meant to read aloud, Madge a box of luncheon, and Eleanor and Lillian their sewing. Tania skipped along with her hand in Madge’s. John had promised to join them later in the day if he returned in time from his trip on the water.

The girls settled themselves under some trees whence they could command a view of the land and the bay. Madge lay down in the soft grass and rested her head in her hands. She meant to listen to Phil’s reading, not to puzzle over her own worries. Phil’s book gave a thrilling account of the early days in the Delaware Bay, when it was the favorite cruising place for pirates. It was rather hard to believe, when the girls gazed out on the smooth, blue water, that it had once been the scene of so many fierce adventures with pirates. Once a crew of seventy men, belonging to the famous Captain Kidd, had actually sailed up the Delaware Bay and frightened the people of Philadelphia.

Madge had forgotten to listen. She could hear Phil’s voice, but not her words. The history of piracy, of course, was very thrilling, but Madge did not see how any long-ago dead and buried pirates or their hidden treasures could help her out of her present difficulties. She stood in need of real riches.

A sailboat dipped across the horizon and headed for the landing not far from where the girls were sitting, but no one of them noticed it.

“Look ahoy! look ahoy!” a friendly voice cried out from across the water.

Phyllis closed her book with a snap, Lillian and Eleanor dropped their sewing, Tania ran to the water’s edge, and Madge sat up.

It was Captain Jules who had hailed them.

“Well, my hearties, is this a summer camp?” demanded the old sailor as his boat came near the land. “I have been all the way to the houseboat to find you. I have something to show you.” Captain Jules’s broad face shone with good humor. He was clad in his weather-beaten tarpaulins, and on his shoulder perched the monkey.

Madge covered the sides of her curly head with her hands. “Please don’t let the monkey pull my hair this morning,” she pleaded as the captain came up.

He tossed the monkey over to Tania, who cuddled it affectionately in her arms, and began talking softly to it.

Then Captain Jules seated himself on the grass and the houseboat girls gathered about him in a circle. He put one great hand in his pocket. “I’ve some presents for you,” he announced, trying to look very serious, but smiling in spite of himself.

“What are they?” asked Lillian eagerly.

“That’s telling,” returned the captain. “You must guess.”

“Shells,” said Tania quickly.

Captain Jules shook his head. “You’re warm, little girl,” he replied, “but you haven’t guessed right yet.”

Lillian sighed. “I never could guess anything,” she remarked sadly. “Please do tell us what it is.”

The captain relented and drew out of his pocket a handful of what seemed to be either oyster or mussel shells.

“You’ve brought some oysters for our luncheon, haven’t you?” guessed Eleanor. “You must stay and eat them with us.”

Captain Jules chuckled. “Oysters are out of season, child, and these are never good to eat.”

But Madge had clapped her hands together suddenly, her eyes shining. “You have been down to the bottom of the bay, haven’t you, Captain Jules? And you’ve found some pearls!”

Captain Jules shook his head. “I wouldn’t call them pearls, exactly. They’re too little and too poor. But come, now; maybe they are seed pearls. I went down under the water with the men who were looking over the oyster beds yesterday. Pearl oysters are not found in beds, like the edible oysters, so I wandered around on the bottom of the bay a bit and picked up these.” The captain extended his great hand. Five pairs of eager eyes peered into it. There lay four nearly round, thick shells, horny and rough with tiny little pearls embedded in them.

“‘Pearls are angel’s tears’,” quoted Phil softly.

Captain Jules seemed worried. “I searched about everywhere in the bay, but I could only find these four tiny pearls, and pretty lucky I was to find them!” the sailor continued. “They aren’t of much value, but I wanted to give them to five girls, and that’s just the difficulty.” The captain looked at the houseboat party, which now included Tania, as though he did not know just what he should make up his mind to do.

“Let’s draw straws for them,” suggested Eleanor sensibly.

Madge shook her head. “No; Captain Jules is to give them to you and to leave me out. Remember, some stranger gave me a handsome pearl when I graduated. I have never had it mounted.” Madge slipped her arm confidingly through the old sea captain’s and gazed into his face with her most earnest expression. “Captain Jules is going to do something else for me; he is going down to the bottom of the bay again in his diving suit, and he is going to take me with him.”

“What a ridiculous idea!” protested Eleanor. “Just as though Captain Jules would think of doing any such thing.”

Lillian laughed unbelievingly, but Phil’s face was serious. “It would be awfully jolly, wouldn’t it? There wouldn’t be any danger if Captain Jules should take you. Do please take Madge down with you, and then take me,” she insisted coaxingly.

Captain Jules shook his head, but the little captain observed that he did not look half so shocked at the idea as he had the first time she proposed it. This was encouraging.

Phil took hold of one of the captain’s hands, and Madge the other.

“Please, please, please!” they pleaded in chorus.

“Miss Jenny Ann wouldn’t let you,” objected Captain Jules faintly.

“But if we were to get her permission,” argued Madge triumphantly, “then you would take us down to the bottom of the bay. I just knew you would, you are so splendid! I shall send to New York to see if we can rent a diving suit.”

“Never mind about that, I’ll see about the suit,” promised Captain Jules. “But it’s all nonsense, and I have never said that I would take you. I wish I weren’t a sailor. There is an old saying that a sailor can never refuse anything to a woman.”

“Here comes Tom,” announced Lillian hurriedly.

“Then don’t say anything to him about the diving,” warned Madge. “He will think it is perfectly dreadful for girls to attempt it.”