little captain and embraced her with
an affection she had not shown her during the summer.

"My dear," she murmured, "will you ever stop being the most reckless girl
in the world? What possible good could that wretched diving feat of yours
do anybody on earth? If my hair weren't already white I am sure it would
have turned so in the last half-hour. Look at poor Philip Holt. He seems
as nervous as though you were his own sister."

Madge and Captain Jules had both taken off their heavy diving suits and
were soon shaking hands with every one on the pier. Even Roy Dennis and
Mabel Farrar, much as they disliked Madge, could not conceal the fact
that they thought her extremely plucky.

Captain Jules had laid the iron chest on the ground and for the moment
they had forgotten it.

It was little Tania who danced up to it and tried to lift it.

"Show us the pearls you found, Madge," Eleanor begged her cousin at this
instant, her brown eyes twinkling.

The little captain looked crestfallen. "I am afraid we didn't find
anything of value," she said, trying to pretend that she was not
disappointed. "I have only some pretty shells and stones that I gathered
on the bottom of the bay for Tania."

She pulled her sea treasures out of her netted diving bag. Sure enough,
the water had dried on them and the shells and stones appeared quite dull
and ugly. There were almost as pretty shells and pebbles to be picked up
at any place along the Cape May beach.

"Why, Madge!" exclaimed Lillian, before she realized what she was saying,
"surely, you didn't waste your time in bringing up such silly trifles as
these?"

Madge shook her head humbly. "We didn't find anything else but this old
iron chest. Captain Jules, may I take it back to the houseboat with me as
a souvenir, or do you wish it? Tania, child, you can't lift it, it is too
heavy."

Tom Curtis brought the chest to Captain Jules. Some of the crowd had
moved away, now that the diving was over. But a dozen or more strangers
pressed about the girls and their friends.

"There is something in this little chest, Captain," declared Tom Curtis
quietly, as he set it down before the captain and Madge. "I could feel
something roll around in the box as I lifted it."

Captain Jules shook the heavy safe. Something certainly rattled on the
inside.

There were bits of moss and tiny shells and stones encrusted on the upper
lid of the box. Deliberately Captain Jules scraped them off with a stic