At last Phil turned to Lieutenant Lawton. "Lieutenant Jimmy, won't you take me to the nearest telegraph station?" she demanded. "I am sorry not to wait for Madge and Tom, but I must telegraph to my father." Lillian and Eleanor were in the same state of mind. They also went along with Lieutenant Lawton. It was arranged that Miss Jenny Ann and Jeff should wait for the truant. They would then bring Madge and Tom to the hotel at Portsmouth where they arranged to have dinner. Miss Jones and Jeff lingered in the same place for half an hour. Miss Jenny Ann then concluded to walk up the river bank to the square to inquire if an accident had happened to the run-away. She must have been in the square when Madge and Tom passed without seeing her. A few minutes later Miss Jenny Ann concluded to go on up to the hotel, where the other girls were expecting her. She thought that Tom and Madge must have met the rest of the party and gone on to the hotel with them. She would find them there. Tom and Madge searched everywhere along the wharf. They stopped half a dozen people to inquire for a party of four women and two men. No one had seen any such group. "Does everyone in the houseboat crowd look as well as you do?" asked Tom, as they hurried along the street. "If they do, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Here we have been grieving ourselves to death, believing you were lost, and you have been having the jolliest kind of a lark on a little Robinson Crusoe island. You watch me go duck shooting there some day." But after half an hour of vain inquiry for her friends Madge grew impatient. "I don't see why the girls didn't wait for me. They went away without letting me know where they were going," she scolded. "Won't you please take me to your mother, Tom? I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will come to Old Point some time to-night." There had been no plan made, before Madge went away, for spending the night in Portsmouth. Tom was only too happy to be the little captain's escort. He liked to think of his mother's joy at seeing her. They had a jolly supper on the big, comfortable steamer that travels between Portsmouth and Fortress Monroe, arriving at Old Point a little after dusk. The streets were almost deserted. It was cool enough for fires, and there was little lingering outdoors. Madge sat down on a bench in a small park, while Tom went to the nearest drug-store to telephone to his mother. He thought it wise to break the news of the discovery of the houseboat party by degrees. Also he wished to know if his mother had yet heard from Miss Jenny Ann and knew where she was. Madge felt a grateful sense of happiness steal over her as she waited for Tom's return. It was, indeed, pleasant to be with her old friends who cared so much for her. To-day Fortress Monroe did not frown down upon the little home-comer from its stern battlements. The old fort seemed to offer her protection against her enemies.