“Now my report is ready; I’m glad it’s done; it seems an immense load off my mind; but I must write a little note to go with it.”

“Of course you must,” said Evelyn; “and I’ll run away and talk to Cousin Molly while you do it.”

She hastened from the room, and Lulu’s pen was again set to work.

“My own dear, dear papa, I have your letter—­such a nice, kind one to be written to such a bad, disobedient girl:  it came last Wednesday, and this is Saturday; for though I did obey you about the report, by beginning at once to write it, I had to make it so long that I couldn’t finish it till now.

“I have tried to tell ’the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ and Eva thinks I have succeeded.

“Papa, I am really and truly sorry for having been so disobedient and obstinate; passionate, too; but I’m always being naughty and then sorry, then naughty again.

“I don’t see how you can keep on loving such a bad child; but oh, I’m so glad you do!  Though it makes me sorrier than ever, and oh, so ashamed!  I know I deserve punishment at your hands, and I have no doubt you would inflict it if you were here.  I’m afraid you will say I must be sent away to a boarding-school; but oh, dear papa, please don’t.  I do intend to be good, and not give any trouble to Grandpa Dinsmore or any of the rest.  I think I was the first part of the winter, and would have been all the time if they hadn’t forced me to take lessons of that horrid man.

“Papa, I’ve always thought you wouldn’t have said I must go back to him after he struck me.  Would you?  And don’t you think Grandpa Dinsmore was very hard on me to say I must?  I don’t think anybody but my father has any right to punish me in that way, and I don’t believe you would say he had.

“Dear papa, won’t you please write soon again and say that you forgive me?”

But we will not give the whole of Lulu’s letter to her father.  She had something to say of her own and Max’s distress over the report that his vessel was supposed to be lost, of the sickness of the dear little sisters, the pleasant time she was having at Magnolia Hall, etc.

The letter and report together made quite a bulky package; Mr. Embury—­not being in the secret of the report—­laughed when he saw it, remarking that “she must be a famous letter-writer for so young a one.”  Lulu rejoiced when it was fairly on its way to her father, yet could not altogether banish a feeling of anxiety in regard to the nature of the reply he would send her.

Grace and Baby Elsie improved steadily till they were quite well and past the danger of a relapse.

All the members of the Viamede family gathered there again as soon as the physicians pronounced it entirely safe to do so; and a week or two later, when the little ones seemed quite strong enough for the journey, they all set out on their return to Ion, where they arrived in safety and health; received a joyful welcome from Edward, Zoe, other relatives and friends gathered for the occasion, the servants and numerous dependants, and found their own hearts filled with gladness in the consciousness of being again in their best-loved home.