here? What have I done?" Then a look of
unearthly wisdom came into Tania's solemn, black eyes. She continued to
stare at the young man so silently and gravely that Philip Holt's blonde
face twitched with nervousness.

"Didn't you recognize me before?" he asked fiercely. "You were quite
likely to shriek out in the night and spoil everything, so I had to carry
you off with me, little nuisance that you are! You can just make up your
mind, young woman, that you will stay right here in this room until I can
take you to that nice institution for bad children that I have been
telling you about for such a long time. You'll never see your houseboat
friends again."

Tania made no answer, and Philip Holt left her sitting on the floor of
the gloomy room wide-eyed and silent.

For three days Tania stayed alone in that cheerless room. She saw no one
but an old, half-foolish man who came to her three times a day to bring
her food. He gave Tania a few rough garments to dress herself in and
treated the little prisoner kindly, but Tania found it was quite useless
to ask the old man questions. She was a wise, silent child, with
considerable knowledge of life, and she understood that there was nothing
to be gained by talking to her jailer, who would now and then grin
foolishly and tell her that she was to be good and everything would soon
be all right. Her nice, kind brother was going to take her away to school
as soon as he could. The wicked people who had been trying to steal her
away from her own brother should never find her if her brother could help
it.

So the long nights passed and the longer days, and little Tania would
have been very miserable indeed except for her fairies and her dreams. It
is never possible to be unhappy all the time, if you own a dream world of
your own. Still, Tania found it much harder to pretend things, now that
she had tasted real happiness with her houseboat girls, than she had when
she lived with old Sal. It wasn't much fun to play at being an enchanted
princess when you knew what it was to feel like a really happy little
girl. And no one would care to be taken away to the most wonderful castle
in fairyland if she had to leave the darling houseboat and Madge and Miss
Jenny Ann and the other girls behind.

So all through the daylight Tania sat with her small, pale face pressed
against the dirty window pane, waiting for Madge to come and find her.
She even hoped that a stranger might walk along close e