“No, my dears, not to-night,” he said:  “she has cried herself sick—­has a bad headache, and I want her to try to sleep it off.”

“Poor Lu! she must have been feeling awfully all this time,” Max said.  “I wish I hadn’t been so very angry with her.”

“You look very happy—­you two,” their father said, smiling down at them.

“So do you, sir,” returned Max; “and I’m so glad, for you’ve been looking heart-broken ever since you came home.”

“Pretty much as I have felt,” he sighed, patting Gracie’s cheek as he spoke.

“We are just as happy as we can be, papa,” she said; “only I”—­

“Well?” he said inquiringly as she paused, leaving her sentence unfinished.

“I’m just hungry to sit on your knee a little while; but,” ruefully, “I s’pose you haven’t time.”

“Come into the nursery with me, and you shall sit there as long as you like, and are willing to keep perfectly quiet, so as not to disturb baby.”

“Oh! thank you, papa,” she returned joyously, slipping her hand into his.  “I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

“I hope my turn will come to-morrow,” remarked Max.  “I’ve a hundred questions I want to ask.”

“As many as you like, my boy, when I have time to listen; though I don’t promise to answer them all to your entire satisfaction,” his father replied, as he passed on into the nursery, taking Grace with him.

Max went down-stairs, where he found Evelyn Leland sitting alone in one of the parlors, waiting till her aunt Elsie should be ready to go back to Fairview.

“Max,” she said, as he came in, and took a seat at her side, “you have just the nicest kind of a father!”

“Yes, that’s so!” he returned heartily:  “there couldn’t be a better one.”

“I wish he would let me see Lu,” Evelyn went on:  “I was in hopes he would after the doctor had told him the baby was sure to get well.”

“I think he would, but that Lu has cried herself sick, and he wants her to sleep off her headache.  He refused to let Gracie and me in for that reason.”

“Poor thing!” Evelyn exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes.  “I should think it must have been almost enough to set her crazy.  But how happy she will be when she hears that your father isn’t going away again, and means to keep her at home with him.”

“Yes, indeed; she’ll go wild with joy; it’s what all three of us have wanted to have happen more than any thing else we could think of.

“I’ve often envied boys that could live at home with their fathers; though,” he added with a happy laugh, “I’ve said to myself many a time, that mine was enough nicer than theirs to make up for having to do without him so much of the time; at least, I’d never have been willing to swap fathers with one of ’em.  No, indeed!”

“Of course not,” said Evelyn.  “And I’m so delighted that Lu and I are not to be separated!  I can hardly wait to talk with her about it, and the good times we’ll have together.”