When that was done, he commanded, “Now break this bread into that other bowl of milk, take your spoon and eat it.”

Now thoroughly frightened, she did not dare disobey.

He sat and watched her till the meal was finished, she feeling that his stern eye was upon her, but never once venturing to look at him.

“Have you anything to say to me, Lucilla?” he asked as he rose to go.

“No, sir,” she answered, with her eyes upon the carpet.

“My child, you are grieving me very much,” he said, took up the salver and went out.

Lulu did love her father—­though not nearly so well as her own self-will—­and his parting words brought a gush of tears from her eyes.  She was half inclined to call to him to come back, and say she would obey.

But no! her heart rose up in fierce rebellion at the thought of asking pardon of his “new wife.”  “I’ll never do it!” she repeated half aloud, “and when I get sick and die from being kept shut up here papa will wish he hadn’t tried to make me.”

So she hardened her heart day after day and refused to yield.

Her fare continued the same, her father bringing it to her three times daily, now in silence, now asking if she were ready to obey.

She saw no one else but the maid who came each morning to put her room in order; except as she caught sight of one or another from the window.  She liked to look at the sea and watch the vessels sailing by, but was often seized with a great longing to get down close to the waves.

After the second day she grew very, very weary of her imprisonment and indulged in frequent fits of crying as she heard the gay voices of Max and the young Travillas at sport on the veranda, in the yards below, or knew from the sound of wheels, followed by an hour or more of quiet, that drives were being taken.

She knew she was missing a great deal of enjoyment.  Being of an active temperament, extremely fond of out-door exercise, made this close confinement even more irksome to her than it would have been to many another.

She had nothing to do.  She had turned over the contents of her trunk several times, had found her doll, and tried to amuse herself with it, but there was little fun in that without a playmate.  She had no book but her Bible, and that she did not care to read; there was too much in it to condemn her.

“Papa,” she said, when he came with her breakfast on the fourth day, “mayn’t I go and run on the beach for ten minutes and then come back?”

“What did I tell you about leaving this room?” he asked.

“I know you said I shouldn’t do it till I asked her pardon,” she replied, bursting into a fit of passionate weeping, “but I’ll never do that, and if I get sick and die you’ll be sorry for keeping me shut up so.”

“You must not talk to your father in that impertinent manner,” he said sternly.  “It is not I who keep you here, it is your own self-will; and just so long as that lasts you will remain here.”