At its conclusion Max offered the one he had received, saying, “Now please read mine aloud, Mamma Vi; I’m sure you would all like to hear it.”

“Mine too,” Grace said, laying hers in Violet’s lap.

When these had been read, both Max and Grace turned expectantly to Lulu.

“Mine is just a nice little talk meant only for me,” she said.

“Then, dear, we won’t ask to see it,” Violet answered pleasantly; and the others seemed satisfied with the explanation.

“Of course papa hadn’t heard about the school.  I wonder what he would think of our being sent to it,” remarked Lulu.

“I have no doubt he would approve of anything done for you by my mother and grandfather,” Violet answered gently.

“When do we begin there?” asked Max.

“Next Monday.  But you are to be taken over this afternoon for a preliminary examination, so that you may be assigned your places and lessons, and be all ready to set to work with the others on Monday morning.”

“Will you go with us, Mamma Vi?” asked Lulu.

“No, dear; but mamma and grandpa will.”

“I must go and tell Eva, so she will be ready,” exclaimed Lulu, starting up and hurrying from the room.

Evelyn had wandered to a distant part of the grounds and seated herself upon a little grassy mound that encircled the roots of a great oak-tree.

With the sight of Lulu’s joy at receiving a letter from her absent father a fresh sense of her own heavy bereavement had come over her, and her heart seemed breaking with its load of bitter sorrow; its intense longing for

“the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!”

She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes gazing far out over the bayou, while tears coursed freely down her cheeks and her bosom heaved with sobs.

It was her habit to go away and weep in solitude when calmness and cheerfulness seemed no longer within her power.

Presently a light step approached, but she did not hear it, and deemed herself still alone till some one sat down beside her and, passing an arm round her waist, tenderly kissed her forehead.

“Dear child,” said her Aunt Elsie’s sweet voice, “do not grieve so; think how blest he is—­forever freed from all earth’s cares and troubles, pains and sicknesses, and forever with the Lord he loved so well.”

“Yes; oh, I am glad for him!” she cried; “but how, oh, how shall I ever learn to live without him?”

“By getting nearer to Him who has said, ’I will be a Father of the fatherless:  I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’

“Dear child, Jesus loves you with a purer, deeper, stronger love than any earthly parent can feel for his child.

“And He will never suffer any trial to visit you which shall not be for your good; He will give you strength to bear all that He appoints, and when the work of grace is done will take you to be forever with Himself and the dear ones gone before.”