rm had died away.

"Where is it? What was it?" growled a masculine voice. "Are you really
hurt, Mabel? You are making so much fuss that I can't tell."

Mabel had dropped back in a chair. She was white with fear and trembling
violently.

"It is in my lap," she moaned. "It may explode any moment--do take it
away!"

The owner of the yacht, Roy Dennis, turned a small electric flashlight
full on his two girl guests. There, in Mabel's lap, was surely a round,
globular-shaped object that had either dropped from the sky or had been
thrown at them by an unknown hand. Roy had really no desire to pick it up
without seeing it more clearly.

The other girl was less timid. She reached over and took hold of Madge's
ball. Then she laughed aloud. Oddly enough, her laugh was repeated out on
the water.

"Why, it's only a rubber ball!" she asserted. Ethel Swann, who was one of
the old-time cottagers at Cape May, ran to the side of the boat. "See!"
she exclaimed, "over there are some boys swimming. I suppose they threw
the ball on board just to frighten us. They certainly were successful."
She hurled Madge's ball back over the water, but Roy Dennis's small yacht
had gone some distance from the group of mischievous mermaids and he did
not turn back. "If I find out who did that trick, I surely will get even
with them," muttered Roy. "I don't like to be made a fool of."

"Don't tell Jenny Ann, please, girls," begged Madge, as the four girls
clambered aboard the "Merry Maid." "It was a very silly trick that I
played. I should hate to have the cottagers at the Cape hear of it. I
don't suppose I shall ever grow up."

"Girls, whatever made you stay in the water so long?" demanded Miss Jenny
Ann, coming into the girls' stateroom with a big pitcher of hot chocolate
and a plate of cakes. "I have been uneasy about you. You have been in the
water for half an hour. That's too long for a first swim. Poor Tania is
fast asleep. The child is utterly worn out with so much excitement. Think
of never having been out of a crowded city in her life, and then seeing
this wonderful Cape May! Tania wanted to stay up to wish you good night.
I left her staring out of the cabin window at the stars when I went into
our kitchen to make the chocolate. When I came back she was asleep."

"Dear Jenny Ann," said Madge penitently, pulling their chaperon down on
the berth beside her, while Lillian poured the chocolate, "it was my
fault we were late. The bad things are