Suppose, after all, thought they, that they should not be rescued, even by the first Monday in November, when Madge assured them the duck shooting began? Perhaps there would not be any ducks this year, or else no one would come to shoot them? There was nothing too dreadful to imagine! Instead of being comforted by Madge's and Phil's report that they were not alone on the island, Miss Jenny Ann was the more uneasy. She did not believe that such a man as the girls had seen would help them to leave this island. Miss Jenny Ann had been trying to beguile the tedium of the stormy days by interesting the girls in the lessons they would even now have been studying at Miss Tolliver's school if their houseboat had not sailed away from her anchorage. All the old school books had been brought up from the "Merry Maid." At first the girls were much pleased with Miss Jenny Ann's idea. Eleanor declared that it would be splendid not to be behind their classes when they returned to school that fall. To-night, however, it was quite impossible to take a proper interest in algebraical problems, when each member of the little group had such a serious individual problem staring her in the face. It did not look as though they were likely to return to Miss Tolliver's in the immediate future. "A penny for your thoughts, girls," remarked Miss Jenny Ann suddenly. "Eleanor, dear, I am going to begin with you. We are all in the dumps to-night. Perhaps it will cheer us up to tell one another our thoughts." Eleanor shook her head. She had been pretending to look over Miss Jones's shoulder, but her eyes were really full of tears. "Don't begin with me," she pleaded. "My thoughts wouldn't cheer anybody up." But the girls were firm. Eleanor must tell them. "Oh, very well," she agreed. "I was thinking of 'Forest House' and Mother and Father. I could smell Aunt Dinah's light rolls browning in the kitchen oven, and the ham broiling, and----" "Oh, please stop, Nellie!" begged Madge huskily. But Eleanor would not stop. "I was wondering if Mother and Father believed now that Madge and I were drowned!" Eleanor dropped her head. There was a dreadful silence in the room that made Miss Jenny Ann realize that the girls were near to breaking down. "What were you thinking of, Madge?" she demanded in desperation. Madge could usually be depended on to cheer the other girls. The little captain shook her head despondently. "I was thinking of my father," she answered, almost under her breath. "I was wishing that I could find him, and that he would take me home." "Lillian, what are you dreaming about to-night?" Miss Jones questioned next. Lillian glanced plaintively into the fire. She popped a particularly fat kernel of a walnut in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully before she replied. Then, still picking at her nuts with a hairpin, she confessed: "I was thinking, Miss Jenny Ann, that, if once I got back home, I would never, never eat another nut, not even at Christmas."