oblivious of the utter unconventionality of the situation and would have been much surprised if they had heard the old women across the aisle whispering to one another.

It is certain that Ellen would have been very indignant if she had known that the young Russian on her left had kept his hand in his pocket all the way, so firm was the belief in his mind that she was a pickpocket.

Surprise showed through even the suave manner of the young salesman at Abercrombie & Fitch’s, but Ellen thought that it was brought forth by the fact that two girls wanted such a surprising number of men’s shirts.

As twilight came and with it no Ellen and Jane, Aunt Min began to get worried and called the boys in consultation. They decided to wait until time to go down for dinner and, if the girls hadn’t come in then, to notify the authorities so they might organize a search for them.

Aunt Min stood wringing her hands and moaning: “Such terrible things could happen to them. Charlie, don’t you remember that awful Chinaman that killed a girl in New York and put her in a trunk where they didn’t find her for ages and ages afterwards?”

“Ellen is so little. Oh! why didn’t I go with them?” and Jack cursed himself roundly for not taking care of the girl with whom he was in love.

Charlie was seated in a lounging chair taking the whole affair quite calmly. “Jack, please behave as though you had some sense. Those girls are about twenty years old, both of them with the average amount of intelligence, plenty of money in their pockets, and both on the outside of a good lunch. So they won’t starve to death and, if they are lost, they can grab a taxi and come to the hotel. I’m willing to bet on Plain Jane’s ingenuity to get ’em home even if they are both dead and in some Chinaman’s laundry bag. Probably what really happened is that they met someone they know and went some place for tea,” and Charlie went on peacefully eating chocolate creams.

“Oh! it is all very well for you to talk, but just suppose it was Mabel Wing who was lost and not Ellen. How about it then?” Jack asked.

“Mabel is too big to lose, so that is one thing I don’t have to worry about,” answered Charlie.

“Anyway, let’s go down in the lobby and wait,” said Aunt Min and led the way.

Once there they took seats facing the entrance and glued their eyes to the door. Consequently, when the girls came in flanking a big policeman, Aunt Min, Jack, and Charlie rose simultaneously and advanced upon them.

Aunt Min cried: “Thank heavens, Charlie Preston knows law! Jane Pellew, what have you done now?”

Jack beside himself was squeezing Ellen’s hand and saying: “Ellen, I am so glad they didn’t take you to jail first. I just know Charlie and I can fix it up with the cop.”

Charlie looked at them in a ruminating manner and murmured: “Too happy-looking for anything to be really the matter. Wish they’d come on and go in to dinner.”

“You are perfectly ridiculous, all of you. Aren’t they, Sergeant Murphy?” and Jane received an understanding wink from that son of the Emerald Isle.

“It was this way,” began Ellen and told of how the big policeman had taken them from shop to shop, and piloted them around all afternoon.

“So when we finished shopping,” broke in Jane, “I suggested that all of us go to a movie.”

“And a fine picture it was, Mum,” said Sergeant Murphy to Aunt Min, “with that Fairbanks lad abusting things wide open with every foot of reel.”

Jane turned to Sergeant Murphy and shaking his hand said: “Ellen and I want to thank you for your kindness and also for giving us such a lovely afternoon.”

“’Tis nothin’,” said Sergeant Murphy. “’Twas myself that had all the fun.”

CHAPTER III
THE BOOJUM

The first of July was a day so perfect that it might well have been made to order. The brilliant blue sky held little wisps of clouds that were scattered by a steady, gentle wind.

“That taxi will never come and I just can’t wait another instant. It should have been here long ago. I just know we’ll be late,” and Jane bobbed up from her chair and rushed to the window at the sound of every car that passed.

Mr. Wing had called them up the night before and asked them all to be out at City Island by ten o’clock. He planned to have lunch and be on the way by one.

“Patience, my dear sister, is like—well, something or other—I can’t remember just what, but it is a good old saying,” Jack flung over his shoulder as he went to answer the knock of the boy who had come to tell them that their taxi was waiting.

Mabel and Mr. Wing met them and took them down to the foot of one of the many little wharves that jutted out in the harbor.

“Frances is already on board. There wasn’t room in the tender for all of us,” Mabel explained. “Oh! I am so happy I can hardly stand it. It almost killed me when Ruth couldn’t come. You know she is taking some sort of social service course this summer and didn’t feel that she ought to stop right in the middle of it.”

“Yes, it must have been a disappointment,” agreed Ellen. “But maybe this will cheer you up some. I had a telegram from Anne Follet this morning saying that she and Ruth would try to be in New York for a few days when we get back.”

“Splendid, marvelous!” bubbled Mabel, who was hard to depress for long.

“Miss Pellew,” suggested Mr. Wing, “you come out and have lunch with us and I’ll have one of the men set you ashore directly after. I’d like to have you see the boat.”

“You are very kind, indeed,” said Aunt Min, rather hurriedly. “But couldn’t you point out your boat to me from here?”

“What, you aren’t afraid, are you?” Mr. Wing laughed that delightful laugh that so often accompanies fatness.

“Yes, I am,” admitted Aunt Min. “But don’t tell the girls or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Mr. Wing pointed to a two-master, with a black hull. “She is the schooner type and was built by a shipbuilder at Gloucester, so she is as sturdy as a Gloucester fisherman, but her yachty lines give her more speed. She’s got a big Lathrop engine in her that can kick her along at ten knots when our wind goes dead on her. She has been almost everywhere and is perfectly able to go anywhere she hasn’t been.”

It was perfectly plain to Aunt Min that boats and water were Mr. Wing’s hobby even though she hadn’t understood half of what he had said, particularly about kicking her along. What was the object in kicking her along if there was an engine?

“None of this fancy yachting for me,” went on the black yacht’s owner. “I’m my own sailing-master because half the fun of yachting to me is the work it entails. Why, I love the feel of the old ‘Boojum’ as she answers to wheel! And let me tell you she handles quick. She is alive, every inch of her.”

“Well, I hope there are plenty of life preservers in convenient places. Thank heavens, all the girls can swim well!” Aunt Min looked rather dubiously at the “Boojum” and at its owner.

Somehow the black hull upset her. It smacked of the piratical and she had visions of drawn cutlasses and bearded men with their heads wrapped up in red rags. It would have been better, she thought, if the boat had been white, as she imagined all yachts were.

“My dear Miss Pellew, it is safe as safe can be and dry as a bone. It takes