“Is this true that I hear of you, Lulu?” he asked.

“Yes, papa,” she answered in a low, unwilling tone, hanging her head as she spoke, for she dared not look him in the face.

“I did not think one of my children would be so disobedient,” he said, in pained accents.

“Papa, you never said I shouldn’t go to Sankaty Lighthouse,” she muttered.

“I never gave you leave to go, and I have told you positively, more than once, that you must not go to any distance from the house without express permission.  Also I am sure you could not help understanding, from what was said when I took you to the lighthouse, that I would be very far from willing that you should go up into the tower, and especially outside, unless I were with you to take care of you.  Besides, what were my orders to you just as I was leaving the house that morning?”

“You told me to change my dress immediately and to stay at home.”

“Did you obey the first order?”

Lulu was silent for a moment; then as her father was evidently waiting for an answer, she muttered, “I changed my dress after a while.”

“That was not obeying; I told you to do it immediately,” he said in a tone of severity, “What did you do in the mean time?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” she muttered.

“You must; and you are not to say you don’t want to do what I bid you.  What were you doing?”

“Walking round the town.”

“Breaking two of your father’s commands at once.  What next? give me a full account of the manner in which you spent the day.”

“I came in soon and changed my dress; then went to the beach till the bathing hour; then Betty and I went in together; then we had our dinner at the hotel and came back to the beach for a little while; then we went to Sankaty.”

“Filling up the whole day with repeated acts of disobedience,” he said.

“Papa, you didn’t say I mustn’t go in to bathe, or that I shouldn’t take a walk.”

“I told you to stay at home, and you disobeyed that order again and again.  And you have been behaving very badly ever since, showing a most unamiable temper.  I have overlooked it, hoping to see a change for the better in your conduct without my resorting to punishment; but I think the time has now come when I must try that with you.”

He paused for some moments.  Wondering at his silence, she at length ventured a timid look up into his face.

It was so full of pain and distress that her heart smote her, and she was seized with a sudden fury at herself as the guilty cause of his suffering.

“Lulu,” he said, with a sigh that was almost a groan, “what am I to do with you?”

“Whip me, papa,” she burst out; “I deserve it.  You’ve never tried that yet, and maybe it would make me a better girl, I almost wish you would, papa,” she went on in her vehement way; “I could beat myself for being so bad and hurting you so.”