They had reached the door of Lulu’s room.  “Max,” she said, turning to him as with a sudden thought, “what do you suppose papa is coming to our rooms for?”

“What do you suppose? have you done anything you ought to be punished for?” asked Max, a little mischievously.  “I thought you looked very cross and rebellious about the hat and about having to come home so soon.  I’m very sure, from what I’ve heard of Grandpa Dinsmore’s strictness, that if you were his child you’d get a whipping for it.”

Lulu looked frightened.

“But, Max, you don’t think papa means to punish me for that, do you?  He has been so kind and pleasant since,” she said, with a slight tremble in her voice.

“You’ll find out when he comes,” laughed Max.  “Good-night,” and he hastened away to his own room.

A guilty conscience made Lulu very uneasy as she hurried through her preparations for bed, and as she heard her father’s step approach the door she grew quite frightened.

He came in and closed it after him.  Lulu was standing in her night-dress, just ready for bed.  He caught up a heavy shawl, wrapped it about her, and seating himself lifted her to his knee.

“Why, how you are trembling!” he exclaimed.  “What is the matter?”

“O papa! are you—­are you going to punish me for being so naughty this evening?” she asked, hanging her head while her cheeks grew red.

“That was not my intention in coming in here,” he said.  “But, Lulu, your wilfulness is a cause of great anxiety to me.  I hardly know what to do with you.  I am very loath to burden our kind friends—­Grandpa Dinsmore and Grandma Elsie—­with so rebellious and unmanageable a child, for it will be painful to them to be severe with you, and yet I see that you will compel them to it.”

“I won’t be punished by anybody but you!  Nobody else has a right!” burst out Lulu.

“Yes, my child, I have given them the right, and the only way for you to escape punishment is not to deserve it.  And if you prove too troublesome for them, you are to be sent to a boarding-school, and that, you will understand, involves separation from Max and Gracie, and life among total strangers.”

“Papa, you wouldn’t, you couldn’t be so cruel!” she said, bursting into tears and hiding her face on his breast.

“I hope you will not be so cruel to yourself as to make it necessary,” he said.  “I have fondly hoped you were improving, but your conduct to-night shows me that you are still a self-willed, rebellious child.”

“Well, papa, I’ve wanted a bird on my hat for ever so long, and I believe you would have let me have it, too, if Mamma Vi and Grandma Elsie hadn’t said that.”

“I shouldn’t let you have it, if they were both in favor of it,” he said severely.

“Why, papa?”