All the captain’s gayety was gone, and his face wore a pained, troubled look.

“But she did reach home in safety at last?” he said, inquiringly.

“Oh, yes; all right except for a wetting, which probably did her no harm.  But now maybe I’m telling tales out of school,” he added, with a laugh.  “I shouldn’t like to get the little girl into trouble, so I hope you’ll not be too hard on her, capt’n.  I dare say the fright has been punishment enough to keep her from doing the like again.”

“I wish it may have been,” was all the captain said.

Then he fell into a revery so deep that he scarcely caught a word of a brisk conversation, in regard to some of the points of interest on the island, carried on between Mr. Dinsmore and the hackman.

Lulu was having an uncomfortable day.  When she met the family at the breakfast-table Grandma Rose seemed to regard her with cold displeasure; “Mamma Vi” spoke gently and kindly; hoping she felt no injury from last night’s exposure, but looked wretchedly ill; and in answer to her mother’s inquiries admitted that she had been kept awake most of the night by a violent headache, to which Rosie added, in an indignant tone, and with an angry glance at Lulu: 

“Brought on by anxiety in regard to a certain young miss who is always misbehaving and causing a world of trouble to her best friends.”

“Rose, Rose,” Elsie said, reprovingly; “let me hear no more such remarks, or I shall send you from the table.”

Lulu had appeared in their midst, feeling humble and contrite, and had been conscience-smitten at sight of her mamma’s pale face; but the sneer on Betty’s face, the cold, averted looks of Edward and Zoe, and then Rosie’s taunt roused her quick temper to almost a white heat.

She rose, and pushing back her chair with some noise, turned to leave the table at which she had but just seated herself.

“What is it, Lulu?” asked Grandma Elsie, in a tone of gentle kindliness.  “Sit still, my child, and ask for what you want.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Lulu.  “I do not want anything but to go away.  I’d rather do without my breakfast than stay here to be insulted.”

“Sit down, my child,” repeated Elsie, as gently and kindly as before; “Rosie will make no more unkind remarks; and we will all try to treat you as we would wish to be treated were we in your place.”

No one else spoke.  Lulu resumed her seat and ate her breakfast, but with little appetite or enjoyment; and on leaving the table tried to avoid contact with any of those who had caused her offence.

“May I go down to the beach, Grandma Elsie?” she asked, in low, constrained tones, and with her eyes upon the floor.

“If you will go directly there, to the seats under the awning which we usually occupy, and not wander from them farther than they are from the cliff,” Elsie answered.  “Promise me that you will keep within those bounds, and I shall know I may trust you; for you are an honest child.”