eir oars. The girls stared curiously.

They saw a house built of shingles that had turned a soft gray which
exactly resembled an old three-masted schooner. It had a tiny porch in
front, but the first roof ended in a point, the second rose higher, like
a larger sail, and the third, which must have covered the kitchen, was
about the height of the first.

"See, Tania, I can make the funny house by putting my fingers together,"
laughed Lillian. "My thumbs are the first roof, my three fingers the
second, and my little fingers the last."

The girls rowed nearer the odd cottage. The place was deserted; at least
they saw no one about. Over the front door of the house hung a trim
little sign inscribed, "The Anchorage."

"Dear me, here is a boathouse, and we've a houseboat!" exclaimed Eleanor.
"I wish we dared go ashore and knock at the door, to ask some one to show
us over it."

"I don't think we had better try it, Eleanor," remonstrated Phil. "The
house probably belongs to some grouchy old sea captain who has built it
to get away from people."

At this moment a man at least six feet tall, wearing old yellow
tarpaulins, came around the side of the house of the three sails with a
large basket on each arm. He sat down on a rock in front of the house and
began lifting mussel and oyster shells out of one of his baskets. He
would peer at them earnestly before throwing them over to one side. He
was a giant of a man, past middle age. His face was so weather-beaten
that his skin was like leather. His eyes were blue as only a sailor's
eyes can be. On one of the man's shoulders perched a wizened little
monkey that every now and then tugged at its master's grizzled hair or
chattered in his ear.

[Illustration: "Good Morning" Shouted Madge.]

The man did not observe the girls in the rowboat, although they were only
a few yards away.

"Good morning," sang out Madge cheerfully, forgetting the vow of silence
which the girls had made that morning against the Cape Mayites. But then,
the girls had never dreamed of seeing such a fascinating seafaring old
mariner. Their vow had been taken against the society people.

The sailor, however, did not return Madge's friendly salutation; he went
on examining his oyster and mussel shells.

Madge looked crestfallen. The old sailor had such a splendid, strong
face. He did not seem to be the kind of man who would fail to return a
friendly good morning greeting.

"I don't think he heard you, Mad