Captain Raymond gave her a pleased, grateful look.  “You were going to the beach, were you not?” he said.  “Then please go on; I shall follow after I have settled this matter with Lulu.  There can be no comfort for her or myself till it is settled.  Gracie, go and tell your sister to come here to me immediately.”

“Do be as lenient as your sense of duty will allow, dear husband,” whispered Violet in his ear, then hastened on her way.

Grace was lingering, gazing at him with wistful, tear-filled eves.

“What is it?” he asked, bending down to smooth her hair caressingly.  “You should go at once, little daughter, when papa bids.”

“I would, papa, only—­only I wanted to—­to ask you not to punish Lulu very hard.”

“I am glad my little Gracie loves her sister,” he said; “and you need never doubt, my darling, that I dearly love both her and you.  Go now and give her my message.”

All day long Lulu had kept herself as far apart from the others—­her sister excepted—­as lay in her power.  She was sitting now alone in the sand, no one within several yards of her, her hands folded in her lap, while she gazed far out to sea, her eyes following a sail in the distant offing.

“Perhaps it is papa’s ship,” she was saying to herself.  “Oh, how long will it be before we see him again!  And oh, how sorry he will be when he hears about last night and this morning!”

At that instant she felt Grace’s arms suddenly thrown round her, while the sweet child voice exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight, “Oh, Lu, he has come! he has, he has!”

“Who?” Lulu asked, with a start and tremble that reminded Grace of the message she had to deliver, and that Lulu’s pleasure at their father’s unexpected return could not be so unalloyed as her own; all which she had forgotten for the moment in the rapture of delight she herself felt at his coming.

“Papa, Lulu,” she answered, sobering down, a good deal; “and I was ’most forgetting that he sent me to tell you to come to him immediately.”

“Did he?” Lulu asked, trembling more than before.  “Does he know about last night, Gracie?  Did Mamma Vi tell him?”

“He knows ’bout it; somebody told him before he got to ’Sconset,” said Grace.  “But mamma didn’t tell him at all; he asked her, but she begged him to please not ask her.  Mamma doesn’t ever tell tales on us, I’m sure.”

“No, I don’t believe she does.  But what did papa say then?”

“That you should tell him all about it yourself; you were an honest child, serious as your faults were, and lie could trust you to own the truth, even when you were to be punished for it.  But, Lulu, you have to go right up to the house; papa said ‘immediately.’”

“Yes,” Lulu replied, getting upon her feet very slowly, and looking a good deal frightened; “did papa seem very angry?”

“I think he intends to punish you,” Grace replied, in a sorrowful tone; “but maybe he won’t if you say you’re sorry and won’t do so any more.  But hurry, Lulu, or he may punish you for not obeying promptly.”