ere nobodies from nowhere!"

"Here, here, Madge!" cried Phyllis Alden, appearing suddenly with the
bread knife--she had been making sandwiches for their party--"them's my
sentiments to a T! I'll cut off Miss Harris's head with the carving
knife if you say so."

Madge laughed. "Oh, no, Phil, I suppose we shall have to be as sweet as
cream to her because her friends are our Mrs. Curtis's friends. Miss
Harris will probably be invited to all the parties we have while we are
here."

"Lieutenant Lawton is nice and interesting, at any rate," interposed
Phil. "Don't think that he talked to me about himself. He only said
that he was in the Navy. But Tom told me that Lieutenant Lawton was
working on a wonderful invention. I think it is something about a
torpedo-boat destroyer that will go twice as fast as any other torpedo
boat," Phil went on vaguely. "Lieutenant Lawton has a work-shop near
Fortress Monroe. It is kept absolutely private through fear that some
one will steal the model for the boat before Lieutenant Lawton has
completed it."

"You became very well acquainted with this young lieutenant, Phil,"
teased Madge. "I suppose he will be rich if he succeeds with his
invention."

Phil shook her dark head enthusiastically. "No; that is why I think he
is so splendid," she argued. "He will make no money, unless our
Government chooses to make him a gift, or to give him a higher rank in
the Navy. Tom says that several foreign countries have offered
Lieutenant Lawton thousands of dollars for his invention. There are
American ship-building companies, too, that would give him a great deal
of money for it. Two men are at Old Point now trying to tempt
Lieutenant Lawton to sell his secret. But Tom says nothing will
influence him; he is such a patriot!"

"Girls, it is time to dress for your tea-party," announced Miss Jenny
Ann.

For an instant she experienced a vague regret that her girls were about
to come in contact with so many fashionable people. She wished that she
could transplant them to the free outdoor life that had characterized
their first houseboat holiday. Here was sensible Phil, her head filled
with stories of wonderful secret inventions and young inventors. And
Phil had been the most dependable of her charges.

But Miss Jenny Ann was looking in the wrong direction for trouble. She
should have concerned herself with the naughty plan that was forming in
Madge's mind. It had never been worth while to pretend that t