“I think I shall take down this conversation and report it to him,” Edward said, only half in earnest.

Lulu turned quickly away, greatly disturbed by the threat, but resolved that her alarm should not be perceived by either him or Zoe.  Walking a few yards from them, she sat down upon the sand and amused herself digging in it, but with thoughts busied with the problem, “What will papa say and do if that conversation is reported to him?”

A very little consideration of the question convinced her that if present her father would say she had been extremely impertinent, punish her for it, and make her apologize.

Presently a glance toward the cottages on the bluff showed her Violet and Grace descending the stairway.  She rose and hurried to meet them.

“Mamma Vi,” she said, as soon as within hearing, “I am ever so sorry to have frightened you so last night and given you a headache.  But you oughtn’t to care whether such a naughty girl as I am is drowned or not.”

“How can you talk so, Lulu dear?” Violet answered, putting an arm round the child’s waist and giving her a gentle kiss.  “Do you think your Mamma Vi has no real love for you?  If so, you are much mistaken.  I love you, Lulu, for yourself, and dearly for your father’s sake.  Oh, I wish you loved him well enough to try harder to be good in order to add to his happiness; it would add to it more than anything else that I know of.  Your naughtiness does not deprive you of his fatherly affection, but it does rob him of much enjoyment which he would otherwise have.”

Lulu hung her head in silence, turned, and walked away full of self-accusing and penitent thoughts.  She was not crying; tears did not come so readily to her eyes as to those of many children of her age, but her heart was aching with remorseful love for her absent father.

“To think that I spoiled his visit home,” she sighed to herself.  “Oh, I wish he could come back to have it over again, and I would try to be good and not spoil his enjoyment in the very least!”

“Come back now?” something seemed to reply; “suppose he should; wouldn’t he punish you for your behavior since he left, only two days ago?”

“Yes,” she sighed; “I haven’t the least doubt that if he were here and knew all he would punish me severely again; and I suppose he wouldn’t be long in the house before he would hear it all; yet for all that I should be—­oh, so glad if he could come back to stay a good while.”

Last night’s storm had spent itself in a few hours, and the morning was bright and clear; yet a long drive planned for that day by our friends was unanimously postponed, as several of them had lost sleep, and wanted to make it up with a nap.

Violet sought her couch immediately after dinner, slept off the last remains of her headache, and about the middle of the afternoon was preparing to go down to the beach, where all the others were, except Grace, who was seldom far from mamma’s side, when the outer door opened, and a step and voice were heard which she had not hoped to hear again for months or years.