“Papa, when is it that we are going to see Max?” queried Lulu.  “Some time in January I know you said, but will it be to spend New Year’s with him?”

“No; wouldn’t you like to go sooner than that?” he asked, stroking her hair and looking down lovingly, smilingly into her eyes.

“Oh, yes, indeed, papa! if it suits you to go and to take me,” she answered eagerly.  “It seems now a long, long while that I have been separated from Max, and the sooner I may go to see him the better.  But have you changed your plans about it?”

“Yes,” he replied.  “I have something to tell you both which will show you why, and also prove pleasant news to you, I think.”

Then he proceeded to tell them of the plans laid that afternoon at Ion, and which made it necessary that, if he went to see Max at all that winter, he must do so before the end of the week already begun.

His news that their winter was to be spent at Viamede was hailed with delight by both the little girls.

“I am so glad!” cried Grace, clapping her hands and smiling all over her face.

“I, too,” exclaimed Lulu.  “Viamede is so, so beautiful, and to have you there with us, you dear papa, will make us—­me any way—­enjoy it at least twice as much as I did before.”

“Me too,” said Grace; “the happiest place for me is always where my own dear father is with me,” hugging him tight and kissing him again and again.

“My darling! my precious darlings!” the captain said in response and caressing them in turn.

“I’m so sorry for poor Maxie,” remarked Grace presently, “that he can’t see you every day, papa, as we do, and be kissed and hugged as we are; and that he can’t go to Viamede with the rest of us.”  She finished with a heavy sigh.

“Yes,” her father said, “I am sorry for him, and for ourselves, that he is not to be with us.  But my dear boy is happy where he is, and I in the thought that he is preparing himself to do good service to our country; to be a valuable and useful citizen.”

“And we are all ever so proud of him—­our dear Maxie; but I’m glad I am not a boy.  Women can be very useful in the world too, can’t they, papa?”

“Yes; yes, indeed, my darlings; the world couldn’t go on without women, any more than without men; both are necessary, and the one sex to be as much honored as the other, and I hope and trust my daughters will all grow up to be noble, true-hearted, useful women, always trying to do earnestly and faithfully the work God has given them to do.”

“I hope so, indeed, papa!” responded Lulu in an earnest, thoughtful tone; “if I know my own heart I do want to be a very useful woman when I’m grown up—­a useful girl now—­serving God with all my might; but oh, I do so easily forget and go wrong!”

“Yet I can see very plainly that my dear little girl is improving,” her father said, softly smoothing her hair with his hand, “and I’m sure—­for the Bible tells us so—­that if you fight on, looking to God for help, you will come off conqueror and more than conqueror in the end.”