“Happy New Year!” screamed Polly.

“Oh just hear her!” cried Lulu in delight.  “Papa must have been teaching her that, or having somebody else do it, while we were away.  I think she’s going to make a great deal of fun for us all.  Happy New Year to you, Eva dear,” giving her friend a hug, as they lay side by side in the bed.

“The same to you, dear Lu,” returned Eva.  “How nice it is to be here with you lying on this easy couch with this down cover and these soft blankets over us.  I never lay on a more delightful bed.  Everything about it is beautiful and luxurious too.”

“Papa was very particular to get the very best of springs and mattresses for all our beds,” replied Lulu.  “Oh but he is a dear, good father, always careful for the comfort and happiness of all his children!”

“And of his wife?”

“Oh yes indeed!  I’m quite sure no man could take better care of his wife, or be more loving and kind to her, than papa is to Mamma Vi.  And I’m pretty sure he was just the same to my mother; he says he loved her very dearly and loves his children—­I mean Max and Gracie and me—­because they were hers as well as because they are his very own.”

“Lu!  Lu! get up!  Time for breakfast!” screamed Polly again.

“I suppose it is morning, or she wouldn’t be making such a fuss,” said Lulu.

“Yes,” said Eva, “I see a little light coming in at the window.”

“I’ll light the gas in the sitting-room, and give her a cracker to stop her screaming,” said Lulu, getting out of bed and feeling about for her warm slippers and dressing gown.  “Then I’ll run and catch papa and Gracie.”

“Lulu,” said the captain’s voice from Gracie’s room.

“I’m here, papa.  Oh a happy New Year to you!”

“Thank you, dear child.  I wish you the same; but I want you to give Polly a cracker as quickly as you can to stop her screaming; for I fear she will wake both guests and babies.”

“Yes, sir; I will.  I was just going to,” replied the little girl.  “Then shall I stay up?”

“I think you may as well go back to bed and try to take another nap,” he answered.  “It is very early yet.”

Lulu hurried into the sitting-room where Polly’s cage was hanging, and struck a light.

“What you ’bout?  Where you been?” demanded the parrot.

“Sleeping in my bed as I have a right to, Miss Saucebox,” returned Lulu, laughing as she opened a cupboard door and brought out a paper of crackers.  “There, take that and see if you can hold your tongue till folks are ready to get up.”

The bird took the offered cracker and began eating it, standing on one foot, on its perch, and holding the food in the claws of the other, while it bit off a little at a time, Lulu looking on with interest.

“You’ll have to behave better than this, or you’ll get banished to the attic, or the kitchen, or some other far-off place,” she said, shaking her finger threateningly at Poll.