"Gracie always is so dear and kind," she said tremulously; "and Maxie isn't often cross with me. Yes, papa, I should like to see them both."

"Your friend Evelyn was here this afternoon, asking permission to come in to see you, but is gone now. You may see her to-morrow, if you want to. Ah! I hear your brother and sister in the hall."

He opened the door, and called to them. They came bounding in, so full of delight over the pleasant prospect opening before them, as hardly to remember that Lulu had been in such dreadful disgrace.

"O Lu! has papa told you the good news?" they cried.

"Yes."

"And aren't you glad?"

"Yes; glad as glad can be. But, oh, I wish the home was ready to go into to-night!"

Her father laughed. "I think you were born in a hurry, Lulu," he said.

"You are never willing to wait a minute for any thing.

"Well, I suppose you children would prefer to be left to yourselves for a while; so I will leave you. You may talk fifteen minutes together, but no longer; as it is your bedtime now, Gracie's at least."

"O papa! don't go!" they all exclaimed in a breath. "Please stay with us: we'd rather have you, a great deal rather!"

He could not resist their entreaties, so sat down, and drew his two little girls into his arms, while Max stationed himself close at his side.

"My dear children," he said, "you can hardly be happier in the prospect before us than your father is."

"Is mamma Vi glad?" asked Lulu.

"Yes; quite as much rejoiced, I think, as any of the rest of us."

"But doesn't she want me sent away to school or somewhere?" with a wistful, anxious gaze into his face. "Is she willing to have me in the new home, papa?"

"Yes, daughter, more than willing: she wants you to be under your father's constant care and watchfulness, hoping that so he may succeed in teaching you to control your temper."

"She's very good and forgiving," was Lulu's comment in a low and not unmoved tone.

"Papa, when will you begin to look for the new home?" asked Grace, affectionately stroking his cheek and whiskers with her small white hand.

"I have been looking at advertis.e.m.e.nts," he said; "and, now that baby is out of danger, I shall begin the search in earnest."

"Can we afford a big house, and handsome furniture, papa?" queried Lulu.

"And to keep carriage and riding horses?" asked Max.

"I hope my children have not been so thoroughly spoiled by living in the midst of wealth and luxury, that they could not content themselves with a moderately large house, and plain furniture?" he said gravely.

"I'd rather live that way with you, than have all the fine things, and you not with us, dear papa," Lulu said, putting her arm round his neck, and laying her cheek to his.

"I too."

"And I," said Max and Grace.

"And I," he responded, smiling affectionately upon them, "would prefer such a home with my children about me, to earth's grandest palace without them. Millions of money could not buy one of my treasures!"

"Not me, papa?" whispered Lulu tremulously, with her lips close to his ear.

"No, dear child, not even you," he answered, pressing her closer to his side. "You are no less dear than the others."

"I deserve to be," she said with tears in her voice. "It would be just and right, papa, if you did not love me half so well as any of your other children."

She spoke aloud this time, as her father had.

"We all have our faults, Lu," remarked Max, "but papa loves us in spite of them."

"'G.o.d commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,'" quoted the captain. "If G.o.d so loved me, while yet his enemy, a rebel against his rightful authority, I may well love my own children in spite of all their faults, even were those faults more and greater by far than they are."

"Then, papa, I think we should love you well enough to try very hard to get rid of them," returned Max.

"And the wonderful love of G.o.d for us should constrain us to hate and forsake all sin," said his father. "The Bible bids us to 'be followers of G.o.d as dear children.' And oh, how we should hate sin when we remember that it crucified our Lord!"

There was a momentary silence: then the children began talking joyfully again of the new home in prospect for them, and their hopes and wishes in regard to it.

Their father entered heartily into their pleasure, and encouraged them to express themselves freely, until the clock, striking nine, reminded him that more than the allotted time for the interview had pa.s.sed. Then he bade them say good-night, and go to their beds, promising that they should have other opportunities for saying all they wished on the subject.

CHAPTER XVI.

"'Tis easier for the generous to forgive Than for offence to ask it."

In pa.s.sing through the hall on his way from Lulu's room to the nursery, Capt. Raymond met "grandma Elsie."

She stopped him, and asked, in a tone of kindly concern, if Lulu was ill, adding, that something she had accidentally overheard him saying to the doctor had made her fear the child was not well.

"Thank you, mother," he said: "you are very kind to take any interest in Lulu after what has occurred. No, she is not quite well: the mental distress of the last two days has been very great, and has exhausted her physically. It could not, of course, be otherwise, unless she were quite heartless. She is full of remorse for her pa.s.sion and its consequences, and my only consolation is the hope that this terrible lesson may prove a lasting one to her."

"I hope so, indeed," Elsie said, with emotion. "Yes, she must have suffered greatly; for she is a warm-hearted, affectionate child, and would not, I am sure, have intentionally done her baby sister an injury."

"No, it was not intentional; yet, as the result of allowing herself to get into a pa.s.sion, she is responsible for it, as she feels and acknowledges.

"And so deeply ashamed is she, that she knows not how to face the family, or any one of them, and therefore entreats me to allow her to seclude herself in her own room till I can take her to the home I hope to make for my wife and children ere long."

"Poor child!" sighed Elsie. "Tell her, Levis, that she need not shrink from us as if we were not sinners, as well as herself. Shall I go in to-morrow morning, and have a talk with her before breakfast?"

"It will be a great kindness," he said, flushing with pleasure, "and make it much easier for her to show herself afterwards at the table. But I ought to ask if you are willing to see her there in her accustomed seat?"

"I shall be glad to do so," Elsie answered, with earnest kindliness of look and tone. "She was not banished by any edict of mine or papa's."