"Watch me hoist the admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, however, and was not injured. "See that?" he commented. "That just proves that the flag of the U. S. A. can never perish," and the others greeted his words with cheers. It was a pretty sight--the whole fleet afloat, each bit of candle burning clearly and each little craft tossing on the waves that Dr. Watkins produced by gently tipping the tub. "This is also an attempt to gain some knowledge of the future," said Helen. "We must watch these boats and see which ones stay close together and which go far apart, and whether any of them are shipwrecked, and which ones seem to have the smoothest voyage." "Della's and mine are sticking together just the way our nuts did," cried Ethel Blue, and she slipped her hand into Della's and gave it a little squeeze. After the loss of its mainmast at the very beginning Roger's craft had no more mishaps. It slid alongside of James's and together they bobbed gently across life's stormy seas. "It looks as if you and I were going into partnership, old man," James interpreted their behavior. The other boats seemed to need no especial companionship but floated on independently, only Gregory's coming to an untimely end from a heavy wave that washed over it and capsized it. "I seem to hear a summons from the Witches' Cave," murmured Helen in an awed whisper as a sound like the wind whistling through pine trees fell on their ears, resolving itself as they listened into the words, "Come! Come! Come!" Quietly they arose and tiptoed their way toward the dining room. They could only enter it by penetrating the thicket of boughs that barred the door. As they came nearer the voice retreated--"Almost as if it were going into the kitchen," whispered Margaret to Tom who happened to be next to her. The only light in the room came from a pan of alcohol and salt burning greenly in a corner and casting an unnatural hue over their faces. The black cats, their eyes touched with phosphorus, glared down from the plate rail. Again the voice was heard:--"Gather, gather about the festal board." "We must obey the witches," urged Helen, and they sat down in the chairs which they found placed at the table in just the right number. Into the dim room from the kitchen came two figures dressed in long black capes and pointed red hats and bearing each a dish heaped high with cakes of some sort. "I just have to tell you what these are," said Ethel Brown in her natural voice as she and Ethel Blue marched around the table and placed one dish before Roger at one end and another before Helen at the other. "It's sowens." "Sowens? What in the world are sowens?" everybody questioned.